Federal election 2015: open data and political party platforms

[Jean-Noé Landry]

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

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[Herb Lainchbury]

Awesome Jean-Noé.  Thanks for taking the lead on this.  +1

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 12:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

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[Tracey P. Lauriault]

Yikes!  The deadline is today!

I know that many of you that I have CC'd are not on the civicaccess.ca list, if you would like to respond please join, and if you would like to respond and not join I will be happy to share your comments back to the list.

I know that many in science, geography, and others in library and archives settings, find the discourse of open data to not be grounded in solid practice, concurrently, it cannot get better unless we join in, in addition, it is outpacing science and L & A in the sphere of public administrations and the public, which means we need to get it right.

We are also aware that open data makes all gov look good, even though, with this government, ironically more open data meant less science, less environmental research, less data, no census, and the shutting of libraries while scientists are silenced.  That does not mean that a different political ideology will do the same.  We have a chance to get those things back on the table, as well as evidence based decision making

Lets help get it right and join this Open North initiative, in the least, lets tie this initiative with your work, and be part of the change.

Cheers

t

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

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[Tracey P. Lauriault]

J-N,

Here is an off list request with something to keep in mind in open data generally and also in the platforms and as a way to disseminate data.  It related to bulk data download.

"At a minimum can someone please maintain the case for ftp access. It keeps data visible, countable and accessible in bulk, without the opaqueness of a cataloguing application."

This is coming from someone with extensive data dissemination experience.

Cheers

t

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

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[Steven Clift]

I wanted to share this similar UK effort of note:

http://www.opengovpartnership.org/blog/tim-hughes/2014/10/23/crowdsourcing-uk-open-government-manifesto
Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy

* Support E-Democracy. Pledge drive to raise $10,000 US:
      http://e-democracy.org/donate?ft  - Only $890 to 2015 Goal


On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 2:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
>
> With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently
> reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data
> commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we
> are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians
> with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations
> public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement,
> to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.
>
>
> Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to
> open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens,
> p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be
> debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more
> attention in party platforms this year.
>
>
> We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing
> ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1
> or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in
> our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our
> proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.
>
>
> As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development
> of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We
> Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range
> of stakeholders (many of which on this list).
>
>
> Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare
> recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive
> suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format,
> please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable
> terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to
> information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element
> in your proposals.
>
> We look forward to any contributions!
>
> Jean-Noé
>
> --
>
> Jean-Noé Landry
> http://opennorth.ca/
> 438-398-9338
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
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[hidden email]
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[Tracey P. Lauriault]

J-N;

Another.

"Can you download all data that is available with a couple of commands or clicks?

Can you do a directory listing of all directories and subdirectories that is exported to a local text file that you can then examine/explore/do counts using your own local software?

 

API has its place, for application developers, it has less applicability to gis data users. IMHO it is just in the way of the data for a GIS practitioner.

 

It is not API vs FTP. It is API and FTP."

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

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[David H. Mason]

I have to admit I haven't been following this closely. And I realize the whole "semantic web" (waits for groaning to subside) and "Linked Open Data" efforts have largely been dropped outside of specific health and science areas, and the UK. But I would like to see any mention of standards around taxonomies or ontologies (taxonomies + headings organized using hyperlinks) or any system (JSON LD, etc, etc) past Dublin Core (or even at DC, sigh) to organize headings within domains. It would make discovery and relating information so much easier and provide many advantages when trying to construct big pictures.

There is a reason Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the Web) became very focused on these technologies since they can solve many problems. And indeed the full Semantic Web had components that did not include non specialists, but it is possible to use practical parts of SW/LoD without taking on the full Description Logic, etc. But from what I have gathered, everyone has fallen back to CSV, which is brittle and not relate-able. 

If anyone could talk about where this level of data organizing is at in Canada today I'd appreciate it. 

I did see in the Open North PDF summary of government data sources a less than one sentence mention of these kinds of uses, but anything past that is quite opaque from here.

Thanks,

David

On 17 March 2015 at 16:09, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:

J-N;

Another.

"Can you download all data that is available with a couple of commands or clicks?

Can you do a directory listing of all directories and subdirectories that is exported to a local text file that you can then examine/explore/do counts using your own local software?

 

API has its place, for application developers, it has less applicability to gis data users. IMHO it is just in the way of the data for a GIS practitioner.

 

It is not API vs FTP. It is API and FTP."

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--

Tracey P. Lauriault

http://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/progcity/contributors/tracey-p-lauriault/

https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault

http://datalibre.ca/
@TraceyLauriault
Skype: Tracey.P.Lauriault

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
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[Jean-Noé Landry]

Thanks David, Tracey, and Steven for your responses. 

We've decided to push back these meetings to give us more prep time. 

This means additional time to collect suggestions. We're happy to receive them by next Friday, March 27. 

Cheers, 

Jean-Noé 

On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 5:03 PM, David H. Mason <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have to admit I haven't been following this closely. And I realize the whole "semantic web" (waits for groaning to subside) and "Linked Open Data" efforts have largely been dropped outside of specific health and science areas, and the UK. But I would like to see any mention of standards around taxonomies or ontologies (taxonomies + headings organized using hyperlinks) or any system (JSON LD, etc, etc) past Dublin Core (or even at DC, sigh) to organize headings within domains. It would make discovery and relating information so much easier and provide many advantages when trying to construct big pictures.

There is a reason Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the Web) became very focused on these technologies since they can solve many problems. And indeed the full Semantic Web had components that did not include non specialists, but it is possible to use practical parts of SW/LoD without taking on the full Description Logic, etc. But from what I have gathered, everyone has fallen back to CSV, which is brittle and not relate-able. 

If anyone could talk about where this level of data organizing is at in Canada today I'd appreciate it. 

I did see in the Open North PDF summary of government data sources a less than one sentence mention of these kinds of uses, but anything past that is quite opaque from here.

Thanks,

David

On 17 March 2015 at 16:09, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:

J-N;

Another.

"Can you download all data that is available with a couple of commands or clicks?

Can you do a directory listing of all directories and subdirectories that is exported to a local text file that you can then examine/explore/do counts using your own local software?

 

API has its place, for application developers, it has less applicability to gis data users. IMHO it is just in the way of the data for a GIS practitioner.

 

It is not API vs FTP. It is API and FTP."

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 7:42 PM, Jean-Noé Landry <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With the federal elections fast approaching, Open North is currently reaching out to federal political parties to discuss their open data commitments in their respective party platforms. Through our contacts, we are scheduling meetings with opposition party critics or senior politicians with policy development influence. We intend to make our recommendations public and share it with the Minister for the Treasury Board, Tony Clement, to inform the Conservative Party’s platform as well.

Looking back at the 2011 election platforms, there are few references to open data (NDP no reference to open data; LPC p. 19, 71; CPC, p. 64, Greens, p. 176).  It’s impossible to know if open data or open government will be debated publicly during the campaign. However, we can probably expect more attention in party platforms this year.

We thought that the CivicAccess list might be interested in contributing ideas and proposals. Our recommendations will be actionable and not exceed 1 or 2 pages.  We can’t guarantee that every suggestion will be reflected in our final document, but we wanted to brainstorm with you to strengthen our proposals. We are happy to attribute your contribution in our document.

As a community, we’ve already contributed a lot of ideas for the development of the Government’s Open Government Action Plan 2.0.  Please see the What We Heard Report -- Summary Report to read the suggested ideas by a wide range of stakeholders (many of which on this list).

Our first meeting is next Thursday. If you would like to help us prepare recommendations for the federal parties, we would like to receive suggestions by the end of the day on Tuesday, March 17. In terms of format, please be succinct (e.g. bullet point format) and formulate in actionable terms. There are lots of related topics (e.g. privacy, access to information) so please make sure to clearly identify the open data element in your proposals. 

We look forward to any contributions!

Jean-Noé

--

Jean-Noé Landry

http://opennorth.ca/

438-398-9338

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--

Tracey P. Lauriault

http://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/progcity/contributors/tracey-p-lauriault/

https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault

http://datalibre.ca/
@TraceyLauriault
Skype: Tracey.P.Lauriault

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
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[hidden email]
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