[open-government] Government of Canada open data and open government

Sun Mar 20 20:06:03 UTC 2011

Following on to Tracey Lauriault's email, just to add some information
- the Government of Canada announced a 12-month pilot of an open data
site on March 17, 2011 and launched an open government initiative
(composed of open data, open information and open dialogue) on March
18, 2011.

The sites in English are

http://data.gc.ca/
http://open.gc.ca/

In French

http://donnees.gc.ca/
http://ouvert.gc.ca/

(You can switch languages at any time.)

Official announcements:

Minister Day Launches Open Data Portal
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/media/nr-cp/2011/0317a-eng.asp

Expansion of Open Government
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/media/nr-cp/2011/0318a-eng.asp

Canada has independent initiatives at both the provincial and municipal levels.

Christy Clark, the Premier of the province of British Columbia, sworn
in March 14, 2011 ran on an open government platform including open
data.
http://www.christyclark.ca/cc/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ChristyClark-FamiliesFirstAgenda.pdf
See pages 12-14.

Open Data
Government data is the people’s data and making it available using
open standards unlocks enormous
potential for private sector innovation. This approach is being
embraced by governments around the world
and implemented by municipalities across Canada, including Vancouver.
It is done by making information
collected by government available to the public in an open,
standardized and usable format, while taking into
account privacy concerns.
Our government will:
• Work to implement Open Data policies across government, allowing new
online applications and
web-based services to be developed.

Some Canadian municipalities provide open data and a group of them is
working to coordinate these efforts.

See more information at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Data_in_Canada

--
Richard Akerman
scilib at gmail.com
http://scilib.typepad.com/

Twitter: @scilib