I just perused the Industry -
Digital Economy Consultation (
http://de-en.gc.ca/home/) discussion paper, and I think access to public sector data and information is nice low hanging fruit. This means science, statistical data, research data, electoral data, postal code files, maps, etc. but also administrative data collected for program delivery that can be useful to inform all sorts of policies (e.g. how many students from where are in dept, where do new Canadians land, etc.).
Responding to this strategy is not fun or sexy work, but I think important work. There is merit in requesting for an open data strategy and framing the argument within their key points and questions.
This week I spent time at the
: Community and Government Roundtable on Data Access (
http://www.municipaldata.ca/roundtable/meeting_website.htm). They are trying to develop a strategy to get data for social policy analysis. At the moment the impediment is not just 'apps' or 'formats' it is about the institutions selling these public datasets to citizens, a state of secrecy and fear of disclosure, cost recovery, regressive licensing and a the state behaving like a monopoly or bank vault.
These individuals and organizations study the impact of public policy on citizens, issues like homelessness, ageing, quality of life, social determinants of health, child poverty, early years schooling, demographic changes (e.g. refugees, new immigrants) in cities and the development of programs for our most vulnerable citizens. This group were not environmental groups, they would have the same argument on a different set of issues: air quality, deforestation, mining, selling of drinking water, etc. An iPhone app is not what they need, they need the data, and a federal open data policy to remove the barriers of access to these data, especially the high cost of those data and the regressive licensing.
There are only 56 days left.
Cheers
t
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Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
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