Canada Adopts Free Model for Map Data

Ordnance Survey take note!
Rationale for charging has gone, says government information expert

"If you've got a computer and a fast connection, you can now download all the maps and satellite pictures you could ever want of Canada. Its government has decided to abandon the charging model that it used until last month for the use of its map data and move to a "free data" model - as being urged for Britain by Technology Guardian's Free Our Data campaign"

What about the copyright of the data?

"Another part of the move loosens the ties on the data - although Canada still uses Crown Copyright, it only asks for acknowledgement of the source. We suspect Canada will see the benefits quite soon. Will the UK follow?"
Source: The Guardian - reported by Charles Arthur

Yes Please -sooner rather than in 50 years (when the map data will be out of copyright) by the time they have unwrapped the red tape from the crown copyright issues.
Free our data!

So if you want Canadian Data - and have plenty of free disk space download from these sources

http://www.geobase.ca

http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html