Improved reporting across government
By The Honourable Scott Brison on November 15, 2017
Open and transparent government leads to better government for all Canadians. As a government, we’ve been acting on this principle from the get-go. Back in November 2015, the Prime Minister made public the mandate letter commitments of each minister. This was a first. Now we’re reporting on our progress against these commitments with the launch of the new Mandate Tracker at Canada.ca/results.…
Open Source Software and Open Standards in the Government of Canada
By Sébastien Lemay on November 1, 2017
A discussion on open source software and open standards in public administration took place last week at the Canada School of Public Service. Approximately 55 people attended in person while more than 450 participated online, with about 100 of these coming from the general public. The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Government of Canada (GC) clearly stated that the Treasury Board…
Digital principles
By Teresa D'Andrea on October 26, 2017
Notice to Readers The opportunity for providing feedback is now closed. Please find the final version of the Government of Canada Digital Standards here. We are developing a set of principles to guide digital development in the Government of Canada. These will shape how we approach managing our information, our technology, and providing services. We have based these on international best…
Building a Global Movement: Collaborating to Open Governments
By Jaimie Boyd on October 24, 2017
Last month I had the pleasure of traveling to Costa Rica to talk about open government. I attended the fifth annual regional conference on open government to further our partnerships within the open government community (AbreLatam) and open data (ConDatos). It was an inspiring, motivating experience, and I’d like to share a few of my top lessons. Setting the scene The conference attracted a…
Bold, Digital Government
By Alex Benay on October 20, 2017
Video Title - TranscriptUnidentified Female: (Off microphone.) Alex, it’s time for your (inaudible). Alex Benay: All right. So I guess this is where these guys are going to want to start hearing about exponential government versus linear government, what actually that may mean in a Canadian context. So I guess for us, if you’re going to start hearing us talk about exponential more, it means…
Co-creation and open policy making
By on October 5, 2017
This summer, federal, provincial and territorial (FPT) ministers of agriculture endorsed the Plant and Animal Health Strategy (PAHS) for Canada. Partners had just one year (when the need was identified at the Emergency Management Framework for Agriculture in Canada endorsement in July 2016) from concept to endorsement by FPT ministers. How did this strategy come together? It takes more than a…
Spotlight on Open Government at the United Nations
By The Honourable Scott Brison on September 22, 2017
I’ve just returned from New York City and the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Every fall for 72 years, the UN’s now-193 member states have convened to seek solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. It’s an important opportunity for Canada to promote multilateralism and the rules-based international order, advance human rights, including gender equality, and champion…
Adapting the Government of Canada to a new digital and interconnected era
By Alex Benay on September 21, 2017
As Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Government of Canada in this new world dominated by platforms revolutionizing entire industries such as Uber, Airbnb or Alibaba, I frequently ask myself “How long will it be before governments worldwide are ‘platformed’?” This is a central question, not only to my work, but to the daily life of every Canadian citizen. A question I decided to address in…
“Just the facts” from the Federal Science Library
By Lynne McAvoy on September 19, 2017
Open Government and Open Science are important values for the Federal Science Library (FSL). The FSL implementation was a commitment under Canada's Action Plan on Open Government. On March 6, 2017, the FSL Portal officially launched to the public, marking an important milestone for openness and transparency. People often ask me, “What is the Federal Science Library?” The FSL is a collaborative…
Simplifying procurement process in action: meet our judges
By Sarah Bérubé on September 8, 2017
The past weeks have been positively exhilarating (and a little exhausting) in many ways. We're currently in the midst of a very exciting project: in July, we launched our new Open by Default Portal Pilot. This was just the beginning of an incredible journey to simplify the government procurement process. The process so far In partnership with Public Service and Procurement Canada, we…
Youth and the use of open data: allow creativity to flourish
By Sarah Bérubé on August 9, 2017
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat had the immense privilege of receiving the Global Shapers community on Thursday, July 13, for an intensive design jam on four issues that the federal public service is facing: Youth engagement on Open government Attracting talent to the government Public services and the digital world Public service support for Canadian companies that want to export…
Can open government reinforce trust between governments and citizens?
By Mélanie Robert on August 1, 2017
At the end of June, I travelled to Washington, DC to participate as an observer at a meeting of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee. As you might remember from one of our previous blog posts, Canada was recently elected to the Steering Committee and we will officially become a member in October this year. I met with colleagues from all over the world: representatives of the…
Global Shapers participate in a Design Jam with the President of the Treasury Board of Canada
By David Lawless, Mariel Reed, Ali Tejpar on July 28, 2017
On 13 July 2017, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat invited the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community to participate in a “Design Jam” as part of the Shape North America 2017 Summit. The session provided 50 of North America’s best and brightest young leaders an opportunity to collaborate with the Government of Canada on ways to address ‘wicked problems’ on engaging youth on open…
Agile procurement for better digital solutions
By Alex Benay on July 27, 2017
Treasury Board President Scott Brison said at the 2017 Blueprint 2020 Innovation Fair: “No more 200-page RFPs. Instead, bake-offs and competitions. No more blind marriages with big IT providers, instead constant dating…more show and less tell, more focus on working prototypes [so] that we really see what a company or provider can do, more competition and more agile providers.” Blueprint 2020…
The Open by Default pilot: an experiment in radical transparency
By Alex Benay on July 21, 2017
I’m excited to present you with our latest step in Open Government: the Open by Default pilot. Through this one-of-a-kind initiative, government departments are sharing their working documents and data with the public, as they are being created. The documents are a diverse selection of flash reports, field notes, project plans, documentation, meeting minutes and more. It’s another step in our…
