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Open data in Canada describes the capacity for the Canadian Federal Government and other levels of government in Canada to provide online access to data collected and created by governments in a standards-compliant Web 2.0 way. Open data requires that machine-readable should be made openly available, simple to access, and convenient to reuse. [1] As of 2016, Canada was ranked 2nd in the world for publishing open data by the World Wide Web Foundation's Open Data Barometer. [2]
A number of efforts have been made to expose data gathered by Canadian governments of all levels in ways that make it available for mashups.
In early 2010, Canada concluded ten open data principles based on the Sebastopol list, the result of the discussion of 30 open government advocates in Sebastopol, California, in 2007. The ten principles serve as the criteria of evaluating openness and accessibility of government data. [3]
Canada's President of the Treasury Board is the lead on Canadian open government and open data at the federal level.
On March 17, 2011, Stockwell Day, then president, announced the launch of the 12-month pilot period for Canada's national open data site. [4] On April 11, 2012, Tony Clement, who had become president since, announced Canada's Action Plan on Open Government, a three-year plan for open data including:
On June 18, 2013, an updated version of the portal was launched, along with an updated Open Government licence.
In addition to the main portal site, other Federal department sites include:
On October 9, 2014, the government issued the Directive on Open Government, an "open by default" directive for government publications and data.
On November 6, 2014, the government announced the 2nd Action Plan on Open Government, [6] including the following open data commitments:
On July 15, 2016, the government released their third action plan, titled the Third Biennial Plan to the Open Government Partnership, which continued the commitments on Open Data Canada, the Open Data Core Commitment and the Open Data Exchange. It added commitments to increase the availability and usability of geospatial data and release more budgetary, spending and financial data and information.
On March 12, 2018, the government adopted the Open Data Charter. [7]
In 2018, the government published the fourth action plan which was built on the foundation of the first three biennial plans. This plan made ten announcements, many of which are associated to open data including: user-friendly open government, corporate transparency, open science, access to information, reconciliation and open government and open government community. This plan is aimed at continuing the Canadian government's openness, transparency and accountability. [8] These ten announcements are:
Announced in 2023, Statistics Canada recently embarked upon an exploratory initiative which aims to enhance the use and harmonization of open building data from government sources, for the purpose of contributing to the creation of a complete, comprehensive and open database of buildings in Canada. [9]
There are 8 Provinces and 1 Territory with open data in Canada as of March 2019: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Québec, and Yukon. [10]
On May 28, 2013, the Province of Alberta launched the Alberta Open Data Portal with approximately 244 datasets. [11] In August 2015 a new portal open.alberta.ca was released to the public, adding further content to the datasets including Government of Alberta publications, a blog, descriptions of how both datasets and publications are chosen and published on the portal. As of October 2017, there are 2361 datasets available to the public, including datasets connected to GeoDiscover Alberta.
On July 19, 2011, the Province of British Columbia launched DataBC, Canada's second provincial open data site. [12] It contains data across a broad spectrum of subjects, access to tools to analyze the data, and a blog featuring data-related posts. Previously the site had been used just to host environmental data as part of the Apps 4 Climate Action contest, Canada's first app development contest. John Anzin was the grand prize winner as the designer of the best Web App in the Apps4Climate Action Apps contest held on September 16, 2010, at the Vancouver Aquarium, and attended by the Honourable John Yap, Minister of State for Climate Action. The winning App created by John Anzin is named VELO. VELO is a web app for businesses that encourages GHG emissions reduction through measurement and benchmarking internally and against peers. The app allows users to create visuals of an organization's emissions by numerous parameters, e.g. geography, branch, division, year, etc. Businesses would have the potential to change their practices, which can have far-reaching effects. [13]
The Open Data Catalogue is supported by CKAN open source software which the BC government played an important role in the development. [14]
The efforts of Ontario to build a transparent and accessible government can date back to 1988 when Ontario established Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act giving public the access to government records. [15]
In 2011, Ontario's minister of research and innovation, Glen Murray announced on Twitter that the province had an open data project "being built over the next few months”. [16] Minister Murray indicated "the project is fully funded through MaRS - it is being built over the next few months". [17]
As of November 8, 2012, the Province of Ontario has an open data portal. It launched with 63 files.[ citation needed ]
As of November 7, 2018, Open Data of Ontario listed 2655 data sets and more than 700 of which are accessible. Ontario has specific requirements for government data, Open Data Directive which require that unless due to legal, privacy, security, confidentiality or commercially sensitive reason factors all data are open to public on the Ontario Data Catalogue. Ontario also let public to vote for what data should be made public, and they are working on making the top 25 datasets available online. [18]
The Gautrin Report (Rapport Gautrin, "Gouverner ensemble : Comment le Web 2.0 améliorera-t-il les services aux citoyens?") released May 2, 2012, announced many open government initiatives, including an open data portal. [19]
In 2017 the Premier of Nova Scotia, Steven McNeil, announced that the province would join the open data movement across the country by creating a data portal, data.novascotia.ca. Data sets hosted on the portal focus on topics such as business and economy, communities and social services, government administration, nature and environment. To encourage the use of open data, the province's Open Data team partnered with Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS to offer an event where students used the public data sets in a contest to create data products.
In 2016 the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador joined the open data movement with the launch of their open data portal: https://opendata.gov.nl.ca/public/opendata/page/?page-id=home
The government of PEI is dedicated to proving data in open format with easy and reliable access, and started its open data portal in 2018. PEI publishes data in different formats: CSV, JSON, XML, Geo formats and shapefiles. The open government portal of PEI is https://data.princeedwardisland.ca/.
The goal of creating an open data repository for the government of Yukon was contained in the mandate letter of January 6, 2017 issued to Richard Mostyn, Minister of Highways and Public Works and Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission. [22] The mandate letter directed the Minister to develop an open data repository in support of economic diversification in the innovation, science, and IT sectors, and to increase the amount of information available to citizens. The open data portal for Yukon is at https://open.yukon.ca/data/.
While national and provincial level government is where attention is usually focused, equally important innovations in public sector open data initiatives can be found at the local government level. A 2014 survey [23] found more than thirty Canadian municipalities had undertaken open data strategies, and the number of municipalities adopting open data policies and releasing open data has been steadily increasing over the past decade. As of June 2020, there are 62 municipalities that have open data portals in Canada. [24] In an effort to increase the utilization of municipal open data, cities across Canada such as Edmonton [25] and Ottawa [26] have created various contests and hackathons for building apps that use municipal open data. [27]
NOTE: Open data in Canada dates back to the 1970s with the sharing of satellite imagery, the Data Liberation Initiative in the early 1990s, Geogratis and Geobase at the turn of the millennia, the Information Commissioner's call for Open Government, and any number of other civil society actions and events. The following is a partial and recent history/background by politicians.
The governing party in the 40th Canadian Parliament was the Conservative Party of Canada. The consultation paper [28] for the government's Digital Economy Strategy, released May 10, 2010, included the statement that "Governments can help by making publicly-funded research data more readily available to Canadian researchers and businesses".
On September 1, 2010, Canada's Access to Information and Privacy Commissioners issued an Open Government Resolution, [29] [30] but this does not have the force of law. They called for governments at all levels across Canada to endorse open government, and for them to proactively disclose information in open formats (i.e. open data).
On October 18, 2010 Charlie Angus, an NDP MP, introduced a Private Members' Motion M-587 who primary purpose was to support the use of open source in the government, but which also called for "open access to government information". [31]
On October 21, 2010, the Liberal Party of Canada released a party platform document, the Liberal Open Government Initiative. It included a commitment to create a national open data site opendata.gc.ca / donneesouvertes.gc.ca on which to "make as many government datasets as possible available". [32]
On October 25, 2010, Green Party blogger Emma Jane Hogbin raised the issue of open data [ citation needed ] and on November 25, 2010, the Green Party called for a Federal Open Data Policy. [33]
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI), 40th Parliament, 3rd Session was conducting a study of Open Government. Recorded audio (Windows Media format) and minutes of their meetings are available.
In October 2018, Canada started its one-year co-chairship of the Open Government Partnership, a collaborative organization supporting open government progress worldwide. The three leadership priorities are inclusion, participation and impact. As the co-chair, the 2019 Open Government Partnership Global Summit will be hosted in Ottawa in May 2019. [34]
A number of the cities use licences that are arguably not Open Data licences [36] as defined by the U.S.-based Sunlight Foundation, [37] and allow for arbitrary and retroactive banning of use. They also do not have versioning of licences and/or datasets.
Statistics Canada, formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in Ottawa.
311 is a special telephone number supported in many communities in Canada and the United States. The number provides access to non-emergency municipal services. The number format follows the N11 code for a group of short, special-purpose local numbers as designated in the North American Numbering Plan.
The Canada Border Services Agency is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border control, immigration enforcement, and customs services in Canada.
The following list outlines the structure of the federal government of Canada, the collective set of federal institutions which can be grouped into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. In turn, these are further divided into departments, agencies, and other organizations which support the day-to-day function of the Canadian state.
CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. Founded in 1941, CBC News is the largest news broadcaster in Canada and has local, regional, and national broadcasts and stations. It frequently collaborates with its organizationally separate French-language counterpart, Radio-Canada Info.
The Transport Direct Programme was a division of the UK Department for Transport (DfT) to develop standards, data and better information technology systems to support public transport. It developed and operates the Transport Direct Portal which is a public facing multi-modal journey planner. It also supports the creation and management of comprehensive databases of all public transport movements in the United Kingdom with Traveline. During 2010 two key datasets were released as Open Data and published on www.data.gov.uk.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides essential information on Canada's health systems and the health of Canadians. CIHI provides comparable and actionable data and information that are used to accelerate improvements in health care, health system performance and population health across Canada.
CANARIE is the not-for-profit organisation which operates the national backbone network of Canada's national research and education network (NREN). The organisation receives the majority of its funding from the Government of Canada. It supports the development of research software tools; provides cloud resources for startups and small businesses; provides access and identity management services; and supports the development of policies, infrastructure and tools for research data management.
Canadian privacy law is derived from the common law, statutes of the Parliament of Canada and the various provincial legislatures, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps ironically, Canada's legal conceptualization of privacy, along with most modern legal Western conceptions of privacy, can be traced back to Warren and Brandeis’s "The Right to Privacy" published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, Holvast states "Almost all authors on privacy start the discussion with the famous article 'The Right to Privacy' of Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis".
Toronto Open Data is an open data initiative by the City of Toronto government in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It provides a "world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose" with proper credit. Four principles are "transparency, participation, accountability, and accessibility."
VMedia Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company and broadcast distribution provider.
Before data.europa.eu, the EU Open Data Portal was the point of access to public data published by the EU institutions, agencies and other bodies. On April 21, 2021 it was consolidated to the data.europa.eu portal, together with the European Data Portal: a similar initiative aimed at the EU Member States.
Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI) was started in January 2012 by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) in partnership with the Web Foundation (WF), to make Government of Ghana data available to the public for re-use. The establishment of GODI is meant to promote efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance as well as to facilitate economic growth by means of the creation of Mobile and Web applications for the Ghanaian and world markets. The project was scheduled for completion in 2014 and aimed to create a sustainable Open Data ecosystem for Ghana. GODI was launched with a 100 data sets categorized as political, legal, organizational, technical, social or economic. The vision of GODI is to develop an open data community involving the Government of Ghana, civil society organizations, industry, developer communities, academia, media practitioners, and the citizenry, to interact with one another with the aim of developing an open data portal to bring about transparency, accountability and efficiency in government.
On April 21, 2021 data.europa.eu was launched as a single access point for open data published by EU Institutions, national portals of EU Member states and non-member states, as well as international organisations of predominantly European scope. The portal consolidates datasets previously available via the EU Open Data Portal and the European Data Portal into a single meta-catalogue. The European Data Portal, launched in its beta version on November 16, 2015, was an initiative of the European Commission, and part of the Digital Single Market.
Proactive disclosure is the act of releasing information before it is requested. In Canada, this refers to an environment where information is released routinely through electronic means with the exception of information that the government is required to protect due to privacy risks. This could refer to information regarding citizens' social insurance numbers or military operations.
Distributel is a brand of Bell Canada headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, founded in 1988 and offering Canadians long distance phone service. Distributel now offers a wide range of high speed Internet plans in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta as well as VoIP Digital Home Phone service across Canada. Distributel also provides IPTV in all major markets in Ontario and Quebec.
Open educational resources in Canada are the various initiatives related to open education, open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies (OEP), open educational practices (OEP), and open scholarship that are established nationally and provincially across Canadian K-12 and higher education sectors, and where Canadian based inititatives extend to international collaborations.
Open by Default, as widely used in the contexts of Open Government and Open Data, is the principle in which government makes its data accessible to the public by default, unless there is a sufficient justification to explain that greater public interest may be at stake, as a result of disclosure. Since the principle empowers the public's right to know and capacity to oversee government activities, it is closely associated with government transparency, civic engagement, and e-governance in organizing public life. In many cases, the principle is accompanied with the technological commitment to create "metadata standardization for all datasets, publication of a machine-readable data catalogue or inventory of both released and to-be released datasets ... (and) use of open licenses."
Sidewalk Toronto was a cancelled urban development project proposed by Sidewalk Labs at Quayside, a waterfront area in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The project was first initiated by Waterfront Toronto in 2017 by issuing the request for proposal (RFP) for development on the Quayside area. Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google, issued the winning bid in 2017. The Master Innovation Development Plan (MIDP) was created in 2019 through conversations with over 21,000 Toronto residents and had aimed to be an innovative reinvention of Toronto's neglected eastern downtown waterfront.
COVID Alert was the Exposure Notification service app for the country of Canada. It launched in the province of Ontario on July 31, 2020, and became available in nearly all Canadian provinces by October of that year, excluding Alberta, and British Columbia.
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