Canadian Municipal Open Data Policy
In this web 2.
0 world with its instant access to information through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and 24/7 news feeds its about time that local governments began to catch up.
As citizens become more and more engaged online, greater access to their local politicians benefits everyone.
We are already living in a world where your Mayor and local Councillor are just a 140 character tweet away and important issues are openly discussed outside of expensive and time consuming referendums.
There are no longer any misconceptions about what your constituents want, they come right out and tell you.
When you make an unpopular statement you are lambasted immediately.
This is not only good for communication, but also for transparency.
Through the use of tools that we currently have we can create more informed voters.
Couple this with an open data policy by your Municipal Government and we have a clearer picture of what everyone's motives and intentions are.
Gone are the days of backroom dealings where sums of money changed hands and votes were bought.
Today we live in a world where, for the first time, politicians are being watched to such a degree that they cannot get away with such actions for long.
I live in a city that has made great strides towards such policy, but more still can be done.
The City of Edmonton shares its reports and raw data of its research in the hopes that the general public will be able to create new tools and find innovative uses for all of this information.
But what about the Councillors? How much open data do we have on them? To be fair, Edmonton has enough information to put it in the top three open data Municipalities, however there are other Municipalities like Toronto that have taken it one step further.
See for example this page that allows you to search campaign contributions for any Toronto Councillor, even by amount and company name.
(Scroll to the bottom and hit Campaign Contributions, or select "Search Contributions" in the left menu).
In Edmonton with a bit of searching, one can find yearly expense reports, campaign contributions, meeting minutes and personal biographies.
But what about voting history, recent activities and known business associates? These things are often left to the reporters and bloggers to discover and post.
Isn't this information public domain? Why is it so hard to find? Aren't these Councillors supposed to be working for us? I don't know about you, but at my work my boss knows everything I do, and my expense reports need to be approved and if I get a complaint or do something wrong I am held accountable and need to explain myself.
Why do we pay these people huge sums of money (in Edmonton alone its $83,488 Source ) and yet have so little control over them, aside from changing our vote the next time around (currently every 3 years)? The times are changing and our youth are not going to be disengaged for long, once they begin to demand accountability from their previously out of touch politicians we will see a huge shift in not only who gets elected, but also how they act once they do.
This can only benefit society, as we move towards more transparency and more contact between those who make the decisions and those who pay their salaries.
0 world with its instant access to information through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and 24/7 news feeds its about time that local governments began to catch up.
As citizens become more and more engaged online, greater access to their local politicians benefits everyone.
We are already living in a world where your Mayor and local Councillor are just a 140 character tweet away and important issues are openly discussed outside of expensive and time consuming referendums.
There are no longer any misconceptions about what your constituents want, they come right out and tell you.
When you make an unpopular statement you are lambasted immediately.
This is not only good for communication, but also for transparency.
Through the use of tools that we currently have we can create more informed voters.
Couple this with an open data policy by your Municipal Government and we have a clearer picture of what everyone's motives and intentions are.
Gone are the days of backroom dealings where sums of money changed hands and votes were bought.
Today we live in a world where, for the first time, politicians are being watched to such a degree that they cannot get away with such actions for long.
I live in a city that has made great strides towards such policy, but more still can be done.
The City of Edmonton shares its reports and raw data of its research in the hopes that the general public will be able to create new tools and find innovative uses for all of this information.
But what about the Councillors? How much open data do we have on them? To be fair, Edmonton has enough information to put it in the top three open data Municipalities, however there are other Municipalities like Toronto that have taken it one step further.
See for example this page that allows you to search campaign contributions for any Toronto Councillor, even by amount and company name.
(Scroll to the bottom and hit Campaign Contributions, or select "Search Contributions" in the left menu).
In Edmonton with a bit of searching, one can find yearly expense reports, campaign contributions, meeting minutes and personal biographies.
But what about voting history, recent activities and known business associates? These things are often left to the reporters and bloggers to discover and post.
Isn't this information public domain? Why is it so hard to find? Aren't these Councillors supposed to be working for us? I don't know about you, but at my work my boss knows everything I do, and my expense reports need to be approved and if I get a complaint or do something wrong I am held accountable and need to explain myself.
Why do we pay these people huge sums of money (in Edmonton alone its $83,488 Source ) and yet have so little control over them, aside from changing our vote the next time around (currently every 3 years)? The times are changing and our youth are not going to be disengaged for long, once they begin to demand accountability from their previously out of touch politicians we will see a huge shift in not only who gets elected, but also how they act once they do.
This can only benefit society, as we move towards more transparency and more contact between those who make the decisions and those who pay their salaries.
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