By Tom J. Smyth

What is web archiving and why do we do it?

“Web archiving” is a specialized digital curation and preservation discipline that guarantees future access to unique resources from the Internet. It uses specialized hardware and software to target, download and replay the original published and interactive context of web resources via an access portal. This work involves committing to the permanent stewardship and preservation of the data comprising those resources and ensuring its informational continuity for research and use far into the future.

Web archiving is practiced by national libraries and archives internationally to ensure the preservation and future access to online (Internet) and digital cultural heritage that is expressed in no other medium. Preserving the resources comprising our digital documentary heritage from our national Internet domain is therefore of vital importance to our contemporary history.

What are Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry?

The Web and Social Media Preservation Program (WSMPP) is pleased to announce the launch of a new web archival collection via our access portal: the Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry Collection.

In the words of the Canadian Encyclopedia,

“[Commissions] descend from the British monarch’s prerogative power to order investigations, said by some to have been exercised under King William I [“the Conqueror” of Normandy] when he commanded the preparation of the Domesday Book, though the Commission on Enclosures initiated by Henry VIII in 1517 [nearly 450 years later] is a more likely prototype of contemporary royal commissions.”

Federal-level commissions may or may not use the word “royal” in their title, depending on their circumstances. These commissions, when struck to investigate a federal-level issue, are created under an Order in Council (OIC) from the Governor in Council and under the authority of the Inquiries Act (R.S.C., 1985) Part I. Investigations regarding a department of the federal government are struck under this Act, section II. The purpose of any commission is to investigate “any matter connected with the good government of Canada or the conduct of any part of the public business thereof.”

Generally, the Lieutenant Governor in Council or Commissioner in Executive Council of the provinces and territories of Canada may order commissions of inquiry under the authority of their Public Inquiry Acts; however, these are non-federal and so are not contained within the Government of Canada Web Archive (GCWA) collections. Royal commissions are also common to governments throughout the Commonwealth.

The Governor in Council appoints, via OIC, person(s) as commissioners by whom the inquiry shall be conducted; the commissions may summon any witnesses and require them to give evidence under oath, orally or in writing. They may also order witnesses to produce documents “and such things as the commissioners deem requisite to their full investigation”. Their legal authority to enforce the attendance of witnesses and to compel them to give evidence is as “any court of record in civil cases” (Inquiries Act (R.S.C., 1985), s. 3–5.).

While not binding on the government, a commission’s findings are highly influential. The final reports of commissions are therefore among the most important (quasi-official) publications produced in Canada. The investigations and resulting reports have highlighted and documented matters of importance to society since Confederation.

History of publishing practices and the digital Commission of Inquiries published collections at LAC

From the inception of digital publishing, LAC and the Privy Council Office (PCO) have collaborated for the stewardship of analog, digitized, born-digital and website-borne Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry.

Since 2008, PCO has expended considerable effort to locate and digitize paper-based commission documents for preservation and wider public access. In 2009, PCO and LAC established a partnership whereby PCO provided the digitized copies and LAC entered them into the national library collections, conducted the preservation and provided public discovery, access and reference (research support) services. The digitized collections resulting from this collaboration with PCO now date from 1868 to the present day.

Furthermore, starting with the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care (2001), the findings of commissions were published via specialized websites, which necessitated shifting acquisition strategies, with LAC responsible for preserving these special websites since 2005.

Replacing the legacy Index to Federal Royal Commissions at LAC

With the re-launch of the GCWA in August 2023, the WSMPP has also developed and launched a Digital Curation Tool. This tool enables web archiving staff to select, arrange, and present acquired web archival data and resources from within the web archive and present them as logical collections for discovery and public access via the GCWA (for example, as was done for the currently accessible Truth and Reconciliation, COVID-19 and Government of Canada collections).

There have been some technical, data, and logistical challenges over the years that have complicated access to these commissions and digital library publications. The GCWA and the new Digital Curation Tool now present an opportunity to restore a specialized portal that can enable full-text search, discovery and access to LAC’s historical commissions publications in a single place.

How do I access the Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry Web Archival Collection?

The GCWA Royal Commissions collection can be found here. The WSMPP staff have also created bibliographic records, which makes these web resources and publications discoverable and accessible by clients using Voilà, Aurora and LAC Collection Search.

This means any topical search from these search tools will now enable clients to discover and access web collections and resources in the GCWA. While this previously required the user to search the GCWA independently, now a search for commissions in Voilà, Aurora, or Collection Search will return a hit for the GCWA collection and enable its consultation with a single click.

This is a major advance for client research use of the GCWA and for clients looking for commissions-published information from anywhere on library-archives.canada.ca or webarchiveweb.bac-lac.canada.ca.

The impetus of this work was severalfold, but was driven primarily by the commissions that have closed in Canada:

• In the near future, the WSMPP will provide access to our master digital preservation copies of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). This action realizes the MMIWG Calls for Justice article 1.11 on behalf of the Government of Canada, which specifically requires LAC and PCO “to maintain and to make easily accessible the National Inquiry’s public record and website” (p. 178).
• The Final Report of the Mass Casualty Commission (Nova Scotia) was issued on March 30, 2023, and its website will be decommissioned at some point in the near future.
• The Final Report of the Public Order Emergency Commission was issued on February 17, 2023, and this website will also be decommissioned at some point in the near future.
• OIC PC Number 2023-0882 of September 7, 2023, struck the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, to conclude February 11, 2025.

The launch of the Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry Web Archival Collection in the GCWA will be most timely, as it provides a specialized access point at LAC for accessing all historical commissions websites and publications, as well as the most recent upon their respective closures.

This collection, the most comprehensive and authoritative in Canada, also restores and greatly advances client research capacity, efficiency, discovery and access for published data, websites and commissions publications, while adding new functionalities and tools in the form of extensive full-text search and commissions curation and discovery facets. For example, as is traditional for this type of publication, it is possible to search and browse by commissioner name (e.g., “Chair Roy Romanow”) as well as the commission name (e.g., “Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada”).

This launch aligns closely with LAC’s Vision 2030 objectives for delivering advanced digital access services directly to the public (in this case, to a new degree of comprehension, where it was previously and technically impossible to search all commissions, and from multiple tools). We’re very proud of this work and our ability to restore the client research facilitation formerly provided by the Index to Federal Royal Commissions at LAC.

This work will be very welcomed by PCO and university libraries, but also by practitioners across the GC and Canada who specialize in official publications, legal work, government data and Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry for the provision of their own research.

Clients can get in touch with us at archivesweb-webarchives@bac-lac.gc.ca.

Dedication

The launch of the Federal Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry Web Archival Collection and this blog post are dedicated to the memory of our friend and valued colleague, Mr. Michael Maurice Dufresne (March 24, 1971–August 15, 2023), who spent many years as the PCO Portfolio Archivist at LAC and with whom I worked (i.e., who taught me the ropes) from my early days on PCO commissions, research and OIC matters. His help, expertise, wisdom, patience and quick wit will be sorely missed.

Tom J. Smyth is the Manager of the Web and Social Media Preservation Program and the Government of Canada Web Archive at Library and Archives Canada. The WSMPP team includes Elizabeth Doyle, Kevin Palendat, Jason Meng and Russell White.