The Bicycle Roads to Nowhere #nlpoli
Frecker Drive is a well-designed residential street in the west end of St. John’s. The street is wide: you can park cars on either side and still have space left…
public policy
Canada’s Opaque Transparency – An Open Data Failure
Yesterday, at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) Canada Minister of Natural Resource, Joe Oliver, announced with great fanfare a new initiative to compel mining companies to disclose…
Great Hacks from the Open Data in Vancouver
Last weekend I helped host an Open Data Day in Vancouver. With the generous support of Domain7, who gave us a place to host talks and hack, over 30 Vancouverites…
Why Does Canada Participate in the Olympics Anyway
I took this screenshot (CBC website) of the standings yesterday showing Germany in first place with 8 medals, Canada second with 10 medals and Norway in third place with 12…
Why Does Canada Participate in the Olympics Anyway
I took this screenshot (CBC website) of the standings yesterday showing Germany in first place with 8 medals, Canada second with 10 medals and Norway in third place with 12…
Why Does Canada Participate in the Olympics Anyway
I took this screenshot (CBC website) of the standings yesterday showing Germany in first place with 8 medals, Canada second with 10 medals and Norway in third place with 12…
Open Data for Development Challenge on Jan 27-28
This just came across my email via Michael Roberts who has been doing great work in this space. Open Data for Development Challenge January 27–28, 2014 — Montreal, Canada Do…
Inertia #nlpoli
In a letter last May to his federal counterpart, economic development minister Keith Hutchings described minimum processing requirements as the “only only policy instrument within provincial jurisdiction that ensures fisheries…
The End of Canada Post and the Coming War for Your Mailbox
As pretty much everyone in Canada learned yesterday (and no one outside the country cares to know), Canada Post, the country’s national postal service will phase out home mail delivery…
What on earth does "fiscally conservative" mean?
Based on current political discourse in Canada, the best I can come up with is “Not the NDP.” Liberals, along with other purported moderates, love the political ideology of “socially…
OGP Rules of the Game – Tactical Mistake or Strategic Necessity?
The other week Martin Tisne, the UK Policy Director at the Omidyar Network, as well as one of the key architects of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), posted a blog…
Some inconvenient truths: goring some educational sacred cows #nlpoli
Friday turned out to be Post-Secondary Education Day with a post here on the impact of the freeze on tuition fees and a fascinating Telegram article on the Conservatives’ 2011…
The Uncertain Future of Open Data in the Government of Canada
It is possible to state that presently, open data is at its high water mark in the Government of Canada. Data.gc.ca has been refreshed, more importantly, the government has signed…
Some thoughts on the relaunched data.gc.ca
Yesterday, I talked about what I thought was the real story that got missed in the fanfare surrounding the relaunch of data.gc.ca. Today I’ll talk about the new data.gc.ca itself.…
The Real News Story about the Relaunch of data.gc.ca
As many of my open data friends know, yesterday the government launched its new open data portal to great fanfare. While there is much to talk about there – something…
Policy-Making in a Big Data World
For those interested I appeared on The Agenda with Steve Paikin the other week talking about Big Data and policy making. There was a good discussion with a cast of…
What Traffic Lights Say About the Future of Regulation
I have a piece up on TechPresident about some crazy regulations that took place in Florida that put citizens at greater risk all so the state and local governments can…
Some Nice Journalistic Data Visualization – Global’s Crude Awakening
Over at Global, David Skok and his team have created a very nice visualization of the over 28,666 crude oil spills that have happened on Alberta pipelines over the last…
Awesome Simple Open Data use case – Welcome Wagon for New Community Businesses
A few weeks ago I was at an event in Victoria, British Columbia at event where people were discussing the possibilities, challenges and risk of open data. During the conversation,…
Open Data Day 2014 – Five Fun Events Around the World
With over 110 Events happening world wide it is impossible to talk about every Open Data Day event. But looking almost every event on the wiki I’ve been deeply moved…