The newly elected Government of Canada made its ministerial mandate letters available to the public last week. They are absolutely worth checking out both for their content and as a example of public disclosure/communication. I’ll talk about that latter part in a second, but let me first let’s discuss some background information and
Continue readingTag: open
Maple-Flavoured Politics: Super-Secret Slogan
An Access to Information request filed by Canadian Press was recently refused. That request asked to see the rationale behind the advertising slogan, “Strong. Proud. Free.” that the Government of Canada (long since rebranded by the Conservatives as the Harper Government™) is now using at considerable expense was refused. Why
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: How The US Used Pussy Riot And You Liked It
Why were you outraged over Russia locking up Pussy Riot but ambivalent over America bringing its full weight down on open access activist Aaron Swartz? Simple, because hating a Russian government is easier than improving your own. When Russian punk band Pussy Riot received 2 years for “hooliganism motivated by
Continue readingThings Are Good: In the Future Cities will be Sharing Centres
Urban centres are already more efficient than their surrounding suburbs and this looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future. Due to the close proximity of people in cities it allows for local sharing projects that can greatly reduce waste awhile increasing access to things we think we need.
Continue readingeaves.ca: Transparency Case Study: There are Good and Bad Ways Your Organization can be made “Open”
If you have not had the chance, I strongly encourage you to check out a fantastic piece of journalism in this week’s Economist on the state of the Catholic Church in America. It’s a wonderful example of investigative and data driven journalism made possible (sadly) by the recent spat of
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives Lied About F-35 Contract
Peter MacKay lied. In 2010 Defense Minister Peter MacKay said many times that the F-35 was selected in an open, competitive, and transparent process, this is contradicted be the Auditor General Michael Ferguson who has said there was no competition, that the costly $25 billion, and growing, contract was indeed
Continue reading