Data: Alberta’s new fuel

By Bronté Valk, CCI Government Affairs Manager in Alberta

It’s a cliche in the tech world at this point: Data is the new oil. But like most cliches, there’s a kernel of truth to it.

As Albertans know well, oil was the vitally important commodity that shaped the 20th century. Access to oil was a defining fact in the second world war, petroleum enabled global air travel and transcontinental supply chains. More than just fuel, petroleum paves our roads and produces plastics.

If you follow the oil, you’ll find your way to every corner of the global economy. Oil isn’t merely a commodity, it’s been a factor of production, driving the economy. Alberta oil has contributed to this story, it has made our province prosperous, and we have every right to be proud of it. Thirteen years ago, following the Great Recession of 2008, Canada’s recovery was driven by high-priced Alberta oil buttressed by voracious Asian demand.

But the world is changing, and we would be foolish if we didn’t pay attention and keep abreast.

Data is a new factor of production in the global economy too. When we look at the most valuable companies in the world today — Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — it’s data and software that drive their success. Whether it’s the Royal Bank or Shopify, the most valuable companies in Canada run on data too.

Just like oil fuelled our growth in the 20th century, data is fuelling new growth in the 21st century. But unlike oil, where Alberta was blessed with abundant reserves, data can be found anywhere. And unlike oil, data can be re-purposed and reused for a multitude of things. Alberta needs to strategically generate and harness data to remain prosperous in the future.

Alberta built policies and infrastructure to enable our oil industry to thrive — permitting regulations and royalty regimes, alongside hard infrastructure like pipelines and refineries.

To acknowledge that the 21st century economy is increasingly driven by data is not to turn our back on oil. Today, every company runs on data, including energy companies. Oil and gas companies leverage data to rapidly analyze and improve drilling and production performance.

You only need to look to last year’s Colonial Pipeline cyberattack to see the simple reality: if the data flow is disrupted, the petroleum stops flowing.

Our government must be thinking strategically about data in the 21st century, ensuring that our government policies and regulations create the conditions to advance the economic and social opportunities of the data economy.

The good news is that in Alberta, work on updating our policies for the data-driven economy is currently in full force. This past summer Alberta looked at the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as well as the Personal Information Protection Act, to update both laws to reflect the current realities of our networked and digitally mediated society. Our laws should create clear standards for citizen privacy and transparency about how data may be used, but they should also give enough flexibility such that data isn’t simply locked away in a vault.

Additionally, a key initiative outlined in Alberta’s 2022 Budget was the implementation of an Alberta Data Strategy to help the government build better communities. While the details of this strategy have yet to be fleshed out, the announcement of the strategy shows an understanding by government that data can play a big role in not just providing economic opportunities but in improving community services and social outcomes.

In Ontario, we are seeing the government has gone one step further and established a new Data Authority which will hold and secure government data, while also allowing individuals and businesses to access data in useful ways.

We shouldn’t view any of this as playing catch-up, or even “modernizing” our laws, as though the future data-driven society is something we need to be dragged into.

Developing new standards and policies for the flows of data in Alberta is an enormous opportunity, and it’s one all of us have already realized with our cell phones, our internet connections, and a myriad of other data-driven services. We know the benefits of the data-driven world. It’s high time for Alberta to take a proactive approach and seize the economic opportunity.