Open Government in Canada - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Open Data in Canada describes the capacity for the Canadian Federal Government and other levels of government in Canada to provide online access to internal data in a standards-compliant Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

way.

Government 2.0 is a way to engage individuals and businesses in government decisionmaking and services. Integration of tools such as wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

s, development of government-specific social networking sites and the use of blogs, RSS feeds and Google Maps

Google Maps

Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...

are all helping governments provide information to people in a manner that is more immediately useful to the people concerned. There are also aspects of improving Freedom of information in Canada

Freedom of information in Canada

Freedom of information in Canada describes the capacity for the Canadian Government to provide timely and accurate access to internal data concerning government services....

but the main focus of Government 2.0 is citizen engagement.

A number of efforts have been made to expose data gathered by Canadian governments of all levels in ways that make it available for mashups

Mashup (web application hybrid)

In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...

Overview

Public information in Canada is the subject of the Access to Information Act and Proactive Disclosure.

The governing party in the 40th Canadian Parliament

40th Canadian Parliament

The 40th Canadian Parliament was in session from November 18, 2008 to March 26, 2011, and was the last Parliament of the longest-running minority government in Canadian history that began with the previous Parliament. The membership of its House of Commons was determined by the results of the 2008...

was the Conservative Party of Canada. The consultation paper for the government's Digital Economy Strategy, released May 10, 2010, included the statement that "Governments can help by making publicly-funded research data more readily available to Canadian researchers and businesses".

On September 1, 2010 Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy Commissioners issued an Open Government Resolution, but this does not have the force of law. They called for governments at all levels across Canada to endorse open government, and for them to proactively disclose information in open formats (i.e. open data).

On October 18, 2010 Charlie Angus

Charlie Angus

Charles Joseph Angus MP is a Canadian writer, broadcaster, musician, and politician. Angus entered electoral politics in 2004 as the successful New Democratic Party candidate in the Ontario riding of Timmins—James Bay. He was the NDP parliamentary critic for Canadian Heritage from 2004 to 2007,...

, an NDP MP, introduced a Private Members' Motion M-587 who primary purpose is to support the use of open source in the government, but which also calls for "open access to government information".

On October 21, 2010 the Liberal Party of Canada released a party platform document, the Liberal Open Government Initiative. It includes a commitment to create a national open data site opendata.gc.ca / donneesouvertes.gc.ca on which to "make as many government datasets as possible available".

On October 25, 2010 Green Party blogger Emma Jane Hogbin

Emma Jane Hogbin

Emma Jane Hogbin is a Canadian technical writer and free software advocate who lives in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. She is active in Drupal and the Bazaar version control system in different capacities and has contributed documentation to the Linux Documentation Project. She also speaks at...

raised the issue of open data and on November 25, 2010 the Green Party called for a Federal Open Data Policy.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is a permanent standing committee of the Canadian House of Commons that reports to the Parliament of Canada on issues related to ethics and the Access to Information Act. The committee may be referred to...

(ETHI), 40th Parliament, 3rd Session is conducting a study of Open Government. Recorded audio (Windows Media format) and minutes of their meetings are available. Submissions and briefs on the subject of open government in Canada can be submitted to the Committee’s mailbox at ETHI@parl.gc.ca

Federal

On March 17, 2011 Minister Stockwell Day

Stockwell Day

Stockwell Burt Day, Jr., PC, MP is a former Canadian politician, and a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. He is a former cabinet minister in Alberta, and a former leader of the Canadian Alliance. Day was MP for the riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla in British Columbia and the president of...

announced the launch of the 12-month pilot period for Canada's national open data site, http://data.gc.ca/

Federal department sites include:

GeoGratis from Natural Resources Canada - "Geospatial data available online at no cost and without restrictions"
Data Collections from Environment Canada

Multijurisdictional

GeoConnections Discovery Portal - "Enabling discovery and access of Canada's geographical information on the Internet"

Currently Community Accounts covers Newfoundland only - "providing users at all levels with a reliable source of community, regional, and provincial data" but the Senate has endorsed making it Canada-wide.

British Columbia

On July 19, 2011 the Province of British Columbia launched DataBC, Canada's first provincial open data site http://data.gov.bc.ca/ It contains data across a broad spectrum of subjects, access to tools to analyze the data, and a blog featuring data-related posts. Previously the site had been used just to host environmental data as part of the Apps 4 Climate Action contest.

In 2007, The British Columbia government met with representatives from Google Earth

Google Earth

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...

on an initiative whereby the government will supply updated information about the province for Google Earth and Google Maps.
They plan to supply information on such things as traffic and mineral resources, information on highway construction projects, as well as data and images banked in the 'Integrated Land and Resource Registry', which gives detailed information about all areas of the province.

Ontario

Toronto Life

Toronto Life is a monthly Canadian magazine about entertainment, politics and life in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Life also publishes a number of annual special interest guides about the city, including Home Decor, Stylebook, Eating & Drinking, Real Estate and Weddings. Established in 1966,...

magazine reported on May 25, 2011 that Ontario’s minister of research and innovation, Glen Murray, is working on a provincial data portal. Minister Murray indicates "the project is fully funded through MaRS

MaRS Discovery District

MaRS Discovery District is a not-for-profit corporation founded in Toronto in 2000. Its stated goal is to commercialize publicly funded medical research with the help of local private enterprises and as such is a public-private partnership....

- it is being built over the next few months".

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has a Data Downloads page.

The Revitalizing Ontario’s Infrastructure site provides information about stimulus spending, in particular the By the Numbers section provides charts and graphs of various spending areas and projects. However, the raw underlying data are not provided, this site visualises information without providing any open data

Open Data

Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...

Calgary

Report was released for the February 10, 2010 Finance and Corporate Services meeting. Recommendations included "Direct Administration to pilot a public data catalog with the relaunch of City On-line expected in 2010 Q2".

Site launched in late September 2010.

Site: http://calgaryonlinestore.com/publicdata.asp

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

is providing open data through the City of Edmonton Open Data Catalogue.

Site: http://data.edmonton.ca/

London

London, Ontario

London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

launched an open data catalogue (Open Data London) in September 2010.

Site: http://www.london.ca/open

Medicine Hat

Medicine Hat launched an open data catalogue in April 2011, there is some background information at http://www.medicinehat.ca/City Government/Open Data/

Site: http://data.medicinehat.ca/

Mississauga

Mississauga has released data and will move towards providing the data sets in open formats.

Site: http://www.mississauga.ca/data

Nanaimo

The city's of Nanaimo, B.C.'s planning department has, over the past five years, steadily
produced enough municipal data to warrant a Time magazine article on open-government, and been dubbed 'the capital of Google Earth'.
Working directly with Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

, the city fed it a wealth of information about its buildings, property lines, utilities and streets. The result is earth.nanaimo.ca, city data viewed through the Google Earth

Google Earth

3D mapping program.

Site: http://www.nanaimo.ca/datafeeds

Ottawa

City Council approved open data on May 12, 2010 and announced plans for a $50,000 apps contest.

Site: http://ottawa.ca/opendata (en français http://www.ottawa.ca/donneesouvertes )

The city also offers free public access to its internal mapping data via a site called eMap.

The Apps4Ottawa contest submission period ran from September 29, 2010 to January 3, 2011 followed by a voting period and awarding of prizes.

Site: http://www.apps4ottawa.ca/

Toronto

In early April 2009, Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

's mayor, David Miller

David Miller (Canadian politician)

David Raymond Miller is a Canadian politician. He was the 63rd Mayor of Toronto and the second since the 1998 amalgamation. He was elected to the position in 2003 for a three-year term and re-elected in 2006 for a four-year term...

announced plans to share city data at toronto.ca/open.

Site: http://www.toronto.ca/open

Windsor

Windsor, Ontario

Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...

provides open data. "Windsor has joined a growing number of cities employing a philosophy and practice known as Open Data".

Site: http://www.citywindsor.ca/003713.asp

Vancouver

In May 2009 Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

passed a resolution that states, "the City of Vancouver will freely share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns."

Site: http://data.vancouver.ca/

Online Tools

Note: the following sites are unofficial; they are not sites created by Canadian governments.

disclosed.ca - keeps track of 247253 contracts available since 2004
FixMyStreet.ca - lets citizens report and discuss local problems like potholes, bad lighting, and unsafe pathways
data dot gc . ca - an unofficial national open data site
http://www.emitter.ca/ (powered by data dot gc . ca)
http://representme.ca/ - currently City of Ottawa only
http://vantrash.ca/ - Vancouver garbage collection reminder service created with Vancouver open data
http://waterenvironmentalhub.ca/ - a not-for-profit open web platform to aggregate and federate water and environmental data, focused initially on Western Canada (beta website available after July 1)
http://www.waterly.ca/ - BC watering reminder created with Environment Canada data
http://www.opendatabc.ca/ - an unofficial BC open data catalogue with data from federal, provincial, local, community and academic organizations

Expenses

http://www.governmentexpenses.ca/
Expense Visualizer - "an online tool that takes advantage of modern web technologies to provide a visual, interactive window on the Canadian Hospitality & Travel Expenses dataset"

Canadian Parliament

Note: parl.gc.ca remains the official Parliament site; some of these sites may not be completely synchonized with it.

http://openparliament.ca/ - tracking activity in Parliament
HowdTheyVote.ca - keeps track of how members of Parliament voted
http://mycelium.ca/ - unofficial site for Parliamentary video
Politwitter.ca - tracking the social media activity including Twitter & Facebook of federal & provincial politicians
TweetCommons.com - tracking the Twitter activity of federal Members of Parliament and members of provincial legislatures
parliament2.ca - an unofficial ideas market where people can suggest priorities for Parliament
http://citizenfactory.com/ - info about MPs and Senators, committees, debates, votes

Information and Advocacy

CivicAccess.ca List is where the CivicAccess.ca network discusses how levels of government can & should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens.
datalibre.ca is a blog, inspired by civicaccess.ca, which believes all levels of Canadian governments should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. Data are collected using Canadian tax-payer funds, and use of those data should not be restricted to those who can afford the exorbitant fees.
VisibleGovernment.ca is a Canadian non-profit that promotes online tools for government transparency.
There have been several ChangeCamps across Canada.
The Lac Carling Congress annually brings together professionals from all three levels of government in Canada with private sector companies. The event focuses on the advancement of electronic delivery of government services in Canada.
A collection of uses of social media in Canadian government can be found here.
The Campaign for Open Government is a coalition that spans the spectrum of issues, politics, and ideology
I Believe in Open .ca - "a national movement challenging politicians to commit to five key improvements in government transparency"
Let the Data Flow - a campaign to make water data open and accessible

Criticisms

A number of the cities use licenses that are arguably not Open Data licenses as defined, and allow for arbitrary and retroactive banning of use. They also do not have versioning of licenses and/or datasets, which is also in conflict with the Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation

The Sunlight Foundation is a 501 educational organization founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States government....

's principle on permanence.

External links

How Canada became an open data and data journalism powerhouse - Guardian - by Simon Rogers - Tuesday 9 November 2010
Open data from Canada on CKAN, an open source registry of open data
Data.gov.au (Open data from the national government of Australia)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Overview

Federal

Multijurisdictional

British Columbia

Ontario

Calgary

Edmonton

London

Medicine Hat

Mississauga

Nanaimo

Ottawa

Toronto

Windsor

Vancouver

Online Tools

Expenses

Canadian Parliament

Information and Advocacy

Criticisms

See also

External links