Some of you know I’ve written a fair bit on Google transit and how it is reshaping public transit – this blog post in particular comes to mind. For more reading I encourage you to check out the Xconomy article Google Transit: How (and Why) the Search Giant is Remapping
Continue readingTag: public policy
eaves.ca: The Surveillance State – No Warrant Required
Yesterday a number of police organizations came out in support of bill C-30 – the online online surveillance bill proposed by Minister Vic Toews. You can read the Vancouver Police Department’s full press release here – I’m referencing theirs not because it is particularly good or bad, but simply because
Continue readingeaves.ca: I Stand for My Rights & Privacy: The Coming Online Police State
“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” This was Mr. Toews’s, the Minister of Justice, counterattack to a question in the house regarding concerns of letting the police monitor citizens internet use without a warrant. Apparently this is our choice: a big brother state or child
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Exciting Launch of Represent.ca and What It Says About Open Data in Canada
Last week a group of volunteer programs from across Canada announced the launch of Represent.ca – a website that tries to map all of Canada’s boundaries. Confused? Don’t be. It’s simple. This is a nifty piece of digital infrastructure – try visiting the website yourself! After identifying where you are
Continue readingeaves.ca: Requests for Endorsements: My Application to Attend The Open Government Partnership
Dear friends, Below (first in english then in a rough french translation – my spoken is much better than my written so I’ve relied on Google translate) is my application letter to attend the April 16-18 Annual Open Government Partnership meeting in Brasilia as a Civil Society Representative. The first
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: Resistance is Not Futile – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
In any democracy worthy of the name, it is not merely the right, but the responsibility of every citizen to resist unjust laws… but there is a contrast between making a scene, and making a difference. There is a choice between the comfort of self-righteous illusion, and the peril of
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: Resistance is Not Futile – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
In any democracy worthy of the name, it is not merely the right, but the responsibility of every citizen to resist unjust laws… but there is a contrast between making a scene, and making a difference. There is a choice between the comfort of self-righteous illusion, and the peril of
Continue readingeaves.ca: Algorithmic Regulation Spreading Across Government?
I was very, very excited to learn that the City of Vancouver is exploring implementing a program started in San Francisco in which “smart” parking meters adjust their price to reflect supply and demand (story is here in the Vancouver Sun). For those unfamiliar with the program, here is a
Continue readingeaves.ca: Public Servants Self-Organizing for Efficiency (and sanity) – Collaborative Management Day
Most of the time, when I engage with or speak to federal public servants, they are among the most eager to find ways to work around the bureaucracy in which they find themselves. They want to make stuff happen, and ideally, to make it happen right and more quickly. This
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Paying attention #nlpoli
In order to understand what is going on in the world around you, then you just need to pay attention. Paul Wells makes plain the value of careful reading – i.e. paying attention – in a post at macleans.ca on the letter from the federal health minister to her counterparts
Continue readingeaves.ca: My Canadian Open Government Consultation Submission
Attached below is my submission to the Open Government Consultation conducted by Treasury Board over the last couple of weeks. There appear to be a remarkable number of submission that were made by citizens, which you can explore on the Treasury Board website. In addition, Tracey Lauriault has tracked some
Continue readingeaves.ca: Ethical Oil and the Northern Gateway Pipeline Process
This piece is cross-posted from the Toronto Star’s Op-Ed Page. This week the “ethical oil” argument adopted by the federal government took an interesting twist. While billions from China pour into Canada to develop the oilsands and fund the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline, on Monday the government announced
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 readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: Hope for the Holidays – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
We will be able to hold our heads high before the judgement of history if we can reply that in our season, we held on to hope, we put aside our doubts, we came together believing in our better selves, and we remembered that we have always burned brightest as
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: Hope for the Holidays – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
We will be able to hold our heads high before the judgement of history if we can reply that in our season, we held on to hope, we put aside our doubts, we came together believing in our better selves, and we remembered that we have always burned brightest as
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 readingeaves.ca: Canada’s Foreign Aid Agency signs on to IATI: Aid Data get more transparent
Last night, while speaking at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan Korea, Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda announced that Canada would be signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). So what is IATI and why does this matter? IATI has developed a common, open
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: To Lead or to Serve – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
Over the past quarter century, political parties have too often lurched away from being mass movements of individual Canadians sharing a common vision of the public good, and towards being backdrops for individual party leaders who speak the language of democracy while wielding near-absolute power over their elected caucuses.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: TVO’s The Agenda: To Lead or to Serve – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
Over the past quarter century, political parties have too often lurched away from being mass movements of individual Canadians sharing a common vision of the public good, and towards being backdrops for individual party leaders who speak the language of democracy while wielding near-absolute power over their elected caucuses.
Continue readingeaves.ca: Statistics Canada Data to become OpenData – Background, Winners and Next Steps
As some of you learned last night, Embassy Magazine broke the story that all of Statistics Canada’s online data will not only be made free, but released under the Government of Canada’s Open Data License Agreement (updated and reviewed earlier this week) that allows for commercial re-use. This decision has
Continue reading