Canada’s commitment to open government is intended to foster greater transparency and accountability, and to help create more opportunities for participation in government. Continuous advances in technology are helping governments to develop innovative approaches to serving the public, making it easier to access government services, communicate with government officials, and making valuable government information readily available to the public.
By getting involved in open government, Canadians can influence decisions. Ultimately, authentic engagement strengthens democracy by encouraging a closer relationship between decision makers and the people affected by their decisions. We are working in partnership with Canadians to improve open government by gathering your views. Effective consultation provides us with vital information about how we can meet the diverse needs of people living, studying, working, and visiting Canada.
Public engagement is an important part of effective government and we have worked with civil society and public servants to develop principles to guide government and citizen engagement. We will be using these principles in the design of our processes and in the evaluation of the engagement.
We use your responses to:
- Inform our vision for Open Government and shape what we do around the needs and aspirations of Canadians in terms of open information, open dialogue and open data;
- Improve our planning and decision-making capabilities;
- Learn what we need to do to achieve a higher level of satisfaction regarding open government initiatives.
The benefits of effective engagement include:
- A government that listens and responds to the views and ideas of its community;
- Improved working relationships with partners, businesses, stakeholders and Canadians;
- Better service—providing information Canadians want and need;
- Increasing confidence and levels of satisfaction both internally and externally;
- Raising awareness and understanding of open government and increasing participation in government and the democratic process.