PHOTOS: Government documents. Really! (Photo: Libraries and Archives Canada.) Legislators in Ottawa need to get cracking to make Canada’s Crown copyright law responsive to the needs of the citizens of…
Today, on the occasion of Canada 150, we should be asking ourselves tough questions relating to the role of public policy in Canada’s ongoing efforts at reconciling with Indigenous people.…
The Canada Revenue Agency has suspended the controversial Harper-era auditing of Canadian charities’ political activities. But some targeted organizations such as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a respected left-leaning…
Across Washington, the country, and the world, the assumptions people have about various programs, policies and roles have been radically altered in the last 12 hours with the victory of…
Since arriving as a Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to integrate digital into the curriculum. I have a course…
The UK Government Digital Service(GDS) is dead. I’m sure it will continue to exist in some form, but from what I’ve read it appears to have been gutted of its…
Michael Barber headed a group of officials for then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that was responsible for getting Blair's major commitments through the government bureaucracy and into practice.They called it the…
Backdrop On Friday the Canadian Government released its draft national action plan. Although not mentioned overtly in the document, these plans are mandated by the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in…
Earlier today the CBC published a piece by Alison Crawford about Canadian public servants editing wikipedia. It draws from a clever twitter bot — @gccaedits— that tracks edits to wikipedia from government…
The newly elected Government of Canada made its ministerial mandate letters available to the public last week. They are absolutely worth checking out both for their content and as a…
Hi friends. Just a brief note to say that I’ve been invited to come to the Kennedy School of Government to be a Research Fellow in the Science, Technology and…
Until now, we had no idea how our governments valued menstruation. Some of you might be surprised to think this was a question but now we have an answer. Both…
This week, Canada’s three major public sector unions protested the Harper government’s continuing muzzling of the country’s federal scientists. The post Harper’s the muzzling of Canada’s federal scientists assailed appeared…
Some people have a hard time with the idea that a great many political decisions are not the product of deep thinking, extensive research, and agonizing debate. They come from…
A new study says gender inequality in Canada has persisted or worsened in critical areas such as violence against women, women’s economic security, and the human rights of Aboriginal women…
Anyone who was paying attention to these things has known for about 25 years that the province would face a demographic crunch starting ‘round about now. Anyone who has been…
A new report by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association says Harper’ mandatory minimum sentencing policies are failing to reduce crime while imposing staggering personal, social and financial costs on…
Jessica Valenti, a columnist at the Guardian newspaper argued in her column in early August, that women should get free feminine hygiene products. Consider these points from Valenti’s column: “UNICEF…
Apologies for the lack of posts. I’ve been in business mode – both helping a number of organizations I’m proud of and working on my own business. For those interested…
Government, Digital Services & IT Procurement Reform
Next semester I’ll be teaching a course on why healthcare.gov initially turned into a disaster. Why? Because sadly, the failure of healthcare.gov was not special. Conservative estimates suggest over half…