30 Fairmont Park Lane S
Lethbridge, AB
30 Fairmont Park Lane South
Lethbridge, AB T1K
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Tony Young
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister
Strategic Policy Branch
Environment Canada
Gatineau QC K1A 0H3
Re: National Climate Change Process Records
Dear Mr. Young
Thank you for your response of March 3, 2009 to my letter of November 26, 2008 to the Honorable Jim Prentice regarding the closure of the website established by the National Climate Change Process (NCCP).
I reviewed the data CD you sent me and found it a pale reflection of the well organized website that had been assembled by the NCCP. Similarly, the information now on the Government of Canada climate change website seems to provide little more than information on actions which may result from the earlier deliberations of the NCCP. I still consider the Government of Canada has been irresponsible with respect to preserving information obtained at great expense to taxpayers and stakeholders.
Fortunately, I’ve recently found that the work of the NCCP has been preserved. A researcher at York University contacted me with respect to the history of certain climate change initiatives. He wondered if the NCCP website might have contained the information he needed. I’d just learned of an Internet information archiving service called the “Wayback Machine” from another researcher. It turned out the website of the NCCP is there in its original form.
The “Wayback Machine” is located at http://www.archive.org/. One simply completes the URL for the archived site (www.nccp.ca) and a list of archives appears. The latest entry for the NCCP site is August 30, 2006 – about the time the site was closed. I hope this information might be helpful to Environment Canada staff as well as others.
The Internet Archive, which maintains the “Wayback Machine”, seems to have initiated a very important undertaking to preserve digital data for posterity. Perhaps the Government of Canada should be looking into supporting the organization (http://www.archive.org/donate/) as a means of saving important information established by its actions. I’m copying Ministers of Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada with this suggestion as they were jointly responsible for the NCCP, as well as Library and Archives Canada.
Sincerely,
Duane Pendergast
cc.
The Honorable Jim Prentice, Minister, Environment Canada, Place Vincent Massey, 8th Floor
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3
The Honorable Christian Paradis, Minister, Natural Resources Canada, 580 Booth, Ottawa, ON K1A 0E4
The Honorable Rick Casson, 255 - 8th Street South, Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 4Y1
Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1A 0N4
Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA