Tag Archives: datasets

Open government 101

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The first time many of us heard of Open Government may have been in 1980, in the pilot episode of the BBC series “Yes Minister.” The first policy idea of newly-appointed minister Jim Hacker was being “open”; giving citizens the chance to connect with the people they had just elected.

Long-serving civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby was dismayed at this idea, explaining that open government was an absurd concept—one must choose between being open or governing.

Today, citizens and governments across the globe disagree with Sir Humphrey’s outdated ideas. Indeed more than 68 countries have joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral initiative that advocates openness within government to promote transparency and empower citizens.

Canada joined the OGP in 2011 and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat released our first Action Plan in 2012. This plan was founded on three pillars: Open Information; Open Data, and Open Dialogue. Our second Action Plan, which builds on the original commitments and adds new commitments in areas such as government spending and contracting data, will be completed this summer.

At Library and Archives Canada (LAC), our main commitment to Open Government centres on open information. We are committed to increasing access to archived federal documents among LAC’s holdings by removing restrictions on this information wherever possible. In February of 2015, we wrote a blog post about Block Review. We’re happy to report that this work continues and that we have now opened almost 18 million pages of records in our holdings! We’re also working to ensure that, wherever possible, government records will be open when transferred to us in the future.

This past summer, we told you about the work we’ve been doing with historical datasets—migrating datasets from our holdings to Canada’s Open Data Portal. To date, we have migrated over 40 datasets. Keep checking our blog to keep up to date with our new additions to the Portal.

Enough about us! How can you get involved? Open Government is about facilitating a two-way conversation. Add your voice to the conversation—the best place to start is the Open Government portal. It’s a one-stop shop for everything the federal government is doing in the Open Government arena (including current consultation opportunities).

Keep checking back for more Open Government updates!

Open Datasets – What’s New?

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Library and Archives Canada is in the process of extracting from outdated storage devices, and then preserving, the datasets of studies undertaken by federal departments. The studies covering a wide range of topics, such as the environment, health and immigration, are being made available on the Open Data portal. To learn more about the structure of the data see our blog Open Data: Providing access to historical Government of Canada studies.

Here is a summary of the datasets we have made available over the past few months. Curious about what these studies discovered? Check them out on the Open Data portal

  1. Longitudinal study of immigrants – 1969–1971 arrivals
    This longitudinal study investigated the economic and social adaptation of immigrants to life in Canada.
  2. Canadian airmen of the First World War
    This file includes personnel information for all traceable Canadian airmen who served in the First World War in the British flying services.
  3. Results of Canadian Federal Elections 1974, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988
    These files contain the voting records for each polling station, electoral district and province for all candidates in Canadian federal elections.
  4. Canadians and Work
    These studies were undertaken in the 1970s and relate to Canadians and work. They include national surveys undertaken to assess job satisfaction and work ethic, Public Service Staff Relations Board pay-rate surveys and an employment study assessing the employment adjustment processes of Canadian graduates in the physical sciences.
  5. Environment – Fire and Water
    • The Test fire, fuel moisture and weather observations datasets contain information collected between 1931 and 1961 about weather, fuel moisture and test fire behaviour measurements for eleven field stations across Canada.
    • The 1968-1979 Canadian Oceanographic Identification Centre dataset includes taxonomic data used to produce group, genus, and species catalogues for the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific freshwater areas.
    • The St. Lawrence River studies were undertaken between 1974 and 1976 to describe the water properties, pollution levels and sediment quality of the St. Lawrence River.