http://staffingpower.com/

I'm willing to bet anything that for accounting purposes, the revenue appears in the StatsCan books separately from the costs of tracking and billing clients. This makes data appear like a big cash generator, even though, once recovery costs are factored in, the actual profit is minimal.

Sadly, it is the public that loses out – as only large companies can afford to use the data. In the end our tax dollars subsidize the data McDonald's uses to figure out where exactly to place its next franchise, but I'll know next to nothing about the stats of my own neighborhood. Sigh.

It's cheaper for me to do my data collection myself…heading downtown to count buildings :S

However: From a client perspective, “Become more like Google” actually means “display targetted advertising next to information”. Government agencies generally can't promote one product over another.

On the other hand, from a hiring perspective, “Become more like Google” means offer the fun, perks, coolness, and incredibly hard work expected in a high-tech company. People do join StatCan because of its great reputation, but also for the stability and work-life balance of a civil service job. It's a hierarchical, unionized public sector environment and just isn't going to have the same culture as high tech. But StatCan's data quality does stem from the staff's high regard for tradition.