Meeting summary: Key points and action items
External stakeholders
- Annette Hester, the Hester View, Canadian Statistics Advisory Council
- Allan Fogwill, Canadian Energy Research Institute
- Bradford Griffin, Canadian Energy and Emissions Data Centre
- Louis Beaumier, Institut de l'énergie Trottier
- Ben Brunnen and Krista Nelson, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Purpose
Meeting with potential participants of the Canadian Centre for Energy Information (CCEI) External Advisory Body to discuss CCEI program objectives and the role of a supporting advisory body in meeting those goals.
Theme 1: Governance/External Advisory Committee role
Participants were generally comfortable with the proposed CCEI External Advisory Committee Terms of Reference, but wanted to have collective discussion on the mechanics of the advisory committee (e.g. how to work as a team, outputs/deliverables, how to reach consensus, engagement with external parties).
Action item
- Include a discussion on governance/committee responsibilities during the inaugural July 2020 advisory committee meeting.
Theme 2: Trust/Transparency and importance of communication/Engagement
Participants expressed need to manage expectations through open and transparent engagement with stakeholders and the public. This included being transparent on advice received from the Advisory Committee, decision making/priority setting by the FPT Deputy-level Steering Committee, documenting how the CCEI is responding, and consider how to share information with the public (i.e. 'Trust Centre', CCEI website or other tools).
Participants also noted the importance of maintaining CCEI as 'policy neutral', both real and perceived, to ensure trust and integrity of the program.
Action items
- Present engagement plan and communications plan at July 2020 External Advisory Committee meeting to discuss approach to obtain feedback from stakeholders and communicating with the public on program 'plans' (e.g. publishing the 5-year plan on CCEI Website to share with the public, ensuring effective communications on initial website content and direction of the program, etc…)
- As the program moves forward and obtains advice from the committee and stakeholders informing CCEI's decision making – consider how to ensure transparency regarding advice received (high-level) and actions/decisions taken by the Centre with the general public.
- Engage with Communications Team at StatsCan on sharing advice received systematically, and having representative from Communications join meetings moving forward to explore.
- Ensuring/maintaining robust conversation on priority setting and data gaps as a key function of the committee (see Theme 4)
Theme 3: Data from external sources – CCEI website
Participants were pleased with the extensive availability of data from federal government, provinces, territories, academia, international institutions, etc… that the initial website would be offering later this summer.
They advised StatsCan provide 'caveats' on data 'ownership' regarding data on the website from other sources (e.g. footnote that data was from external source – to protect integrity of StatsCan and CCEI for data sources were quality has not been confirmed).
Action Item
- Explore with IT and dissemination team possibility of some type of caveat and/or clarity on source of data obtained through CCEI search engine – to flag those coming from external sources.
Theme 4: Initial priority data gaps participants raised
Participants identified the following preliminary 'data priorities'/'issues' as part of the conversation – as well as need for CCEI to maintain 'policy neutrality' – again within the context of protecting the integrity of the program:
- More timely data
- Innovation and commercialization of new technologies (e.g. carbon capture and storage, battery storage technology, etc…)
- Cost of energy and implications for interprovincial/international trade
- Retail and wholesale energy costs and impact on energy poverty/affordability
- Evolution of energy demand
- Establishing consistency in data – through established and agreed upon protocols of data quality
These will be added to other initial data gaps/priorities CCEI has been gathering from stakeholders in previous engagement to date.
Action item
- CCEI team to compile a preliminary list of priorities based on previous engagement with stakeholders and early feedback from advisory body to initiate an early discussion at the July 2020 meeting (and follow-up discussion in September 2020).
Forward agenda: Inaugural CCEI External Advisory Committee meeting in late July
- Finalizing Terms of Reference and Discussion on Committee Roles/Deliverables
- CCEI Presentation and discussion on Engagement and Communications Strategies
- CCEI Presentation and discussion on Early Priorities (as we see them) and feedback from Committee