P.O.I.N.T. Inc. (People and Organizations in North Toronto)

Several small changes to the site recently. Sharing links on all statements; a feed of new bills; party-line votes shown on vote pages; the politician activity feed notes sponsored bills (and votes against the party line).

The federal government is holding a consultation on a strategy for Canada's digital economy. A digital economy is a network economy, which depends on communication for its success. To have government information communicated and shared, rather than locked up in the antiquated secret-by-default posture which too often exists in Canada today, is both a potential economic engine and something Canadians should start to think of as a right.

What I'm trying to say is: read the proposals in the Digital Economy consultation, and vote for this one. And see the about page for a few more introductory paragraphs on what open data's all about.

A couple of days ago, data.gov, the open-data portal launched by the Obama administration, reached its first birthday. And in a celebratory post on the White House blog, US Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra points to some of the open-data sites that have popped up in data.gov's wake, like Britain's data.gov.uk—and Canada's openparliament.ca.

Well! It's extremely flattering, of course, to get a link from the White House. But unlike the other links, impressive data sites from the UK, Australia, or the World Bank, this site is an independent project. Enabling independent projects is the raison-d'être of the open-data movement, but I'm operating for the most part without access to open government data. The link went to us because Canada has no data.gov equivalent. Canada has no federal open-data strategy. And that needs to change.

I'm off to lovely, rainy Newfoundland for the next couple of weeks. While this site will—fingers crossed!—keep updating itself, I won't be responding to much e-mail. If you notice something broken on the site, please e-mail me with urgent in the subject.

Yesterday, Peter Milliken, the Speaker of the House, ruled on whether the government had to provide Parliament with documents about Afghan detainees—and on to what extent the Prime Minister's Office should be able to assert control over Parliament.

I'm going to the Open Data Ottawa event tomorrow (Saturday) at City Hall. Ottawans: drop by!