Canada, November 5, 2014: As part of the global open government movement, governments seek to broaden access to data and information, ensure transparency and accountability, and strengthen citizen engagement in the activities of government and democratic process. In this respect, Canada recently launched its new national Action Plan on Open Government 2.0 in consultation with citizens, civil society and the private sector.
Canada's second Action Plan on Open Government consists of twelve commitments that will advance open government principles in Canada over the next two years and beyond. The Directive on Open Government, new policy direction to federal departments and agencies on open government, will provide foundational support for each of the additional commitments which fall under three streams: Open Data, Open Information, and Open Dialogue.
The government now aims to firmly establish an "open by default" position into its mandatory policy framework by issuing a new Directive on Open Government. Currently, more than 40 departments and agencies have made available more than 200,000 datasets related to weather, border wait times, and product recalls, including collection of maps and geospatial data. Moving forward, Canada will accelerate the release of high-value data, and continue to enhance and improve its open data platforms and services through proactive release of open data.
The plan also lists out that the government will launch several new government-wide thematic Open data portals and consolidate the management of federal geospatial data across the Government of Canada to make it more accessible and reusable via federal open government websites by 2016.
In October 2013, the Government of Canada published its report on the implementation of our first Action Plan, and subsequently, progress was also assessed under the OGP's independent reporting process earlier this year. The updated action plan was developed in four phases that included Public Consultation Planning (April 2014), Generating Ideas (May to August 2014), Proposing Activities (August to September 2014), and Full Review of Action Plan (October 2014).
Canada joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in April 2012, and in June 2013, the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper and other G8 Leaders adopted the G8 Open Data Charter, which established open data principles for all member countries, and called for specific commitments to release core public sector data.
Source: Government of Canada
