Email: MailTo(drew AT SPAMFREE environ DOT ca)

The issue of public data access is an extremely important one, and the current culture of excluding the public from access to civic data must be reversed. Much government-owned data is only available at a high price to the purchaser. Other data is simply not available at all. This has a serious negative impact on small organizations that require such data to conduct business. Spatial data is a case in point. In a great many cases it is collected (ostensibly) on behalf of taxpayers but is ultimately not returned to them.

Drew Makepeace is the owner of Environ Geomatics, a GIS and cartography company based in Penticton, BC. Formerly he was a GIS specialist with the Geological Survey of Canada's Vancouver office.

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