As they say, there are three kinds of statistics — and two of them are lies. On Sunday, a strange and surprising report began making the rounds of the Canadian professional media thanks to Canadian Press: a claim that, contrary to the protests of the Official Opposition, the Harper regime
Continue readingTag: open government
eaves.ca: Open Data Movement is a Joke?
Yesterday, Tom Slee wrote a blog post called “Why the ‘Open Data Movement’ is a Joke,” which – and I say this as a Canadian who understands the context in which Slee is writing – is filled with valid complaints about our government, but which I feel paints a flawed
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: More than 1 in 4 Harper Ministers Miss Proactive Disclosure Deadline
Under policy set by the Chretien government and supposedly faithfully followed by all departments and agencies under the Harper regime, every group within the Government of Canada must supply, every three months, a list of contracts over $10,000, a list of grants and contributions over $25,000, and a list of
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government: A Review
The other day the Canadian Government published its Action Plan on Open Government, a high level document that both lays out the Government’s goals on this file as well as fulfill its pledge to create tangible goals as part of its participation in next week’s Open Government Partnership 2012 annual
Continue readingeaves.ca: Calculating the Value of Canada’s Open Data Portal: A Mini-Case Study
Okay, let’s geek out on some open data portal stats from data.gc.ca. I’ve got three parts to this review: First, an assessment on how to assess the value of data.gc.ca. Second, a look at what are the most downloaded data sets. And third, some interesting data about who is visiting
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the opportunities and limitations associated with the City of Regina’s new open data portal. For further reading, see David Eaves generally, but particularly his analysis of data licensing (where the City looks to have met rather well).
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Government Advocacy: The Danger of Letting Narrative Trump Fact
So I loath making this the first post of the new year, but here we go. Today Canada.com published a story “Tony Clement vows innovative new open government, but critics point to poor record.” In it, Jason Fekete the journalist responsible for the story, quotes a Democracy Watch spokesperson who sadly
Continue readingImpolitical: There’s open government & then there’s not so open government
So Tony Clement was on the Twitter this late afternoon, having his picture taken while at the keyboard, tweeting on the #opengovchat stream during a Treasury Board Secretariat sponsored chat on open government. Open government to the datafiles has a specific meaning, where the objective is to enable open access
Continue readingImpolitical: In Camera government
Beyond all the excitement on the Hill today, there is an important development that Kady O’Malley has noted at the parliamentary committee level that is worth a look. Apparently Conservative MP Mike Wallace of Burlington has put forth a motion at the Government Operations Committee that would mean that all
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Government Consultation, Twitter Townhalls & Doing Advocacy Wrong
Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government launched its consultation process on Open Government. This is an opportunity for citizens to comment and make suggestions around what data the federal government should make open, what information it should share and provide feedback on how it can consult more effectively with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament In Review: October 20, 2011
The main topic of debate on Thursday, October 20 was the Canadian Wheat Board – with extensive discussion in Parliament of both the Cons’ steps to shut down debate, and the substance of what should happen with the Wheat Board.The Big IssueThe passage o…
Continue readingeaves.ca: The State of Open Data 2011
What is the state of the open data movement? Yesterday, during my opening keynote at the Open Government Data Camp (held this year in Warsaw, Poland) I sought to follow up on my talk from last year’s conference. Here’s my take of where we are today (I’ll post/link to a video of the talk as […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Geopolitics of the Open Government Partnership: the beginning of Open vs. Closed
There hasn’t been a ton of press about the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This is hardly surprising. The press likes to talk about corruption and bad government, people getting together to talk about actually address these things in far less sexy. But even where good coverage exists analysts and journalists are, I think, misunderstanding the […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data and New Public Management
This morning I got an email thread pointing to an article by Justin Longo on #Opendata: Digital-Era Governance Thoroughbred or New Public Management Trojan Horse? I’m still digesting it all but wanted to share some initial thoughts. The article begins with talking about he benefit of open data but its real goal is to argue […]
Continue readingCalgaryLiberal: (2) The Challenge: To be seen as having a plan: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (2) The Challenge: To be seen as havi…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Opening the doors on government information
There are lots of good ideas floating around that could make Newfoundland and Labrador a stronger and better place to live. One simple one would be to emulate British Columbia: throw open piles of government information so that people can use it…
Continue readingeaves.ca: Province of BC launches Open Data Catalog: What works
As revealed yesterday, the province of British Columbia became the first provincial government in Canada to launch a open data portal. It’s still early but here are some things that I think they’ve gotten right. 1. License: Getting it Right (part 1) Before anything else happens, this is probably the single biggest good news story […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: New York release road map to becoming a digital city
Yesterday, New York City released its “Road Map for the Digital City: Achieving New York City’s Digital Future.” For those who missed the announcement, especially those concerned about the digital economy, the future of government and citizen services, the document is definitely worth downloading and scanning. At the heart of the document sits a road […]
Continue readingPoliTeching: Facebook, Supporter of Gov’t Secrecy and Against Individual Privacy, Caught Anonymously Smearing Google
New York Time provided an insight to Facebook’s position on individual’s privacy: For years, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has extolled the virtue of transparency, and he built Facebook accordingly. The social network requires people to use their real identity in large part because Mr. Zuckerberg says he
Continue readingdjkelly.ca: Announcing #yycdata Camp
Civic Camp in partnership with Pixels and Pints and The City of Calgary will be hosting the first #yycdata Camp at the University of Calgary. The goal of #yycdata Camp is to discuss the opportunities where the use of public data can improve Calgary. (On March 22, 2010 Calgary City Council approved a pilot open public data […]
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