One of the challenges for me — or anyone, for that matter — in maintaining this database is that there is no one-stop shop for finding all government, federal agency, or Crown corporation press releases. I track probably a dozen different sources for these releases and was fairly confident I was getting a global view of government press releases and, hence, government spending announcements.
Earlier this week, I reported that the federal government has, since it was elected, published more than 1,500 press releases for funding commitments totalling more than $70 billion. A database I've been maintaining for two years that tracks federal spending announcements was the key tool in making this calculation.
I have now learned that I had missed one very important department in that database: the Federal Economic Development Initiative in Northern Ontario or FedNor. This omission was brought to my attention through some discussions with very helpful researchers at the Library of Parliament who were interested in my work.
FedNor does not appear to use private sector news release distribution service like Marketwire or Canada Newswire nor does its material show up at the Government of Canada Newsroom site.
A FedNor official indicated that its releases are distributed only to newsrooms in Northern Ontario in the belief that those are the newsrooms likely to have an interest in FedNor's activities.
FedNor, which is an agency within Industry Canada, does publish press releases on the Web but, unlike many other press release pages at government Web sites, you cannot sign up for e-mail distribution of those releases nor can pick up an RSS feed off that site. So, if you want to see a FedNor press release you have to go visit the Web site every day or hour. (Or be a real geek and write some sort of Web-scraping script ..)
All of which is to say: I'm now – sigh – combing through a year's worth of releases from FedNor and adding them into my database. The bottom line is unlikely to change much — the Conservative government has still made (as of Wednesday) over 1,600 annnouncements since they were elected detailing funding commitments of over $70 billion. It might, however, change where Tony Clement, who is both Industry Minister and minister for FedNor, ranks on a list of cabinet's biggest spenders.
As soon as I finish updating my dataset, I'll be publishing the results.
David,
Thanks for doing this. As an employee of an organization located in northern Ontario that is very much interested in the activities of agencies including FedNor, it is unbelievably frustrating to have to spend so much time and effort tracking announcements.
Alas, as for your comment from the FedNor official that its releases are distributed only to newsrooms in Northern Ontario, “in the belief that those are the newsrooms likely to have an interest in FedNor's activities,” it is nothing new. Major media and government too easily ignore the stories and issues in the region. Clement's “Valley of Death” comment for Sudbury highlights this fact; it did not receive the coverage it deserved and the fact that a minister responsible for the region – let alone any politician – would dare say such a thing is amazing.
Enjoy the blog, keep up the great work.
Cheers,
jon