[CivicAccess-discuss] Oldish(?) news: Canadian candidates for the OGP steering committee

Tue Jul 22 03:28:22 AEST 2014

*Gerry;*

People nominate themselves and apply.  Sorta like the Open Knowledge
Foundation embassadors and the Open Data Institute folks.

In the case of Harvey, I filled the application to the OGP, and he was
awarded status at the OGP meetings in Brazil. I consulted with some people,
they supported with formal endorsements as per the process, I wrote the
application, and voila he was selected for that meeting.  There were 4
other submissions at that time.  We did some basic outreach to get povs and
we ensured that his presentation included all they key actors, cities,
feds, civil society groups and examples from across Canada at that time.

When he got to Brazil though, he was removed from the Canadian Panel by the
Canadian Gov. who appointed someone else.  In other words, he was awarded
travel and accomodation, a booth, a place to present, and attendance to the
socials and the meetings.  It was confusing and lacked some process.

Overall, in Canada, we do not really have civil society reps as other
countries do, and our civil society here, on the technical side of the
equation is strong, and the social entrepreneurship side, we do not really
have a very engaged national civil society on this front.  CIPPIC, Open
North and the BC Association are the closests we have to some sort of
national with a local twist, and then there are actors like the Canadian
Council on Social Development, Ontatio Non Profit Network and the Social
Planning Councils which are ramping up their knowledge as data users.
There are of course some academic associations, and some professional
associations, but they have not really picked up the ball on the open data
and open gov files.  Perhaps Katie Gibbs with Evidence for Democracy will
eventuall ramp up some knowledge here to.

Irrespective, we do fairly well overall in relative terms to other
countries, due to the nature of our public administrations, governments,
strong federalism, society and well educated and socially minded puplic.
We have many active locals, and the CIOs/CTOs of provinces and territories
have come on side ever so slowly.  It would however be good, as we discored
during the cancellation of the census, to have some sort of unifying
political voice/convening group that could represent the public on these
issues.  We do have much work still to do.

*Michael;*

Regarding Chris, because he works for a consulting firm, he would not
qualify as a civil society rep, unless of course he was part of a civil
society organization.  The application process is quite specific on that
front.  No question on his expertise, it however leans toward teck and city
and less social and civil society.  I also agree that we need some hybrids.

Cheers
t

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Michael Lenczner <michael at ajah.ca> wrote:

>
>
> Michael Lenczner
> CEO, Ajah
> http://www.ajah.ca
> 514-708-5112
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 7:29 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault <tlauriau at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It is unfortunate that we do not have solid civil society
>> representation.
>>
>> Toby Mendel is excellent, but represents the legal side of things only
>> and to the best of my knowledge brings his organization's point of view
>> forward but not that domain of civil society actors more broadly.
>>
>> Chris Moore is also great, but hardly represents civil society, private
>> sector maybe, which was a big contingent at OGP EU Regional meetings in
>> Dublin.
>>
>
> Any reason you say that Chris Moore represent private sector? 15 years as
> a municipal CIO means that he has extensive experience within municipal gov
> (an important stakeholder) but I agree that he isn't an ideal candidate to
> represent civil society. However, I'm glad that he is nominated - just
> based on what I know of his understanding of open gov and open data.
>
>>
>> We need someone or an organization that can parlay public policy, open
>> data, open access, and ngos who are data users but not engaged in open data
>> app development necessarily, but is savvy enough to navigate those waters.
>> It would also be great to have someone who is considered a representative,
>> someone civil society has nominated or who can stand behind, who has a
>> national understanding of the issues but also sub-national and who may
>> consult with key stakeholders and bring their concerns forward.
>>
>> We did that somewhat when Harvey Low from the Canadian Council on Social
>> Development and the FCM went to Brazil, and we conducted some consultations
>> by conference call and email, but even that was minimal in terms of
>> consultation at best.
>>
>
> It's too bad that there aren't a few organizations that master the
> old-school access to data stuff (i.e. CCSD, SCPOs) as well as the new side
> of things (metadata, open data portals, developing lightweight standards,
> XML/APIs/etc.)  We need a hybrid CCSD / Open North candidate.
>
>
>> Cheers
>> t
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 3:34 AM, Michael Lenczner <michael at ajah.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 2 Canadians on the list of civil society candidates for the for the OGP
>>> Steering Committee. If you're interested, you can dig around more on that
>>> site for more info including CVs and letters of nomination (url below).
>>>
>>> There's been no update since June 30th, 2014 - so maybe this is already
>>> decided and I'm not aware. I hope one (or more) of the Canadians make the
>>> cut, though.
>>>
>>> Chris Moore
>>> (former Chief Information Officer of the city of Edmonton)
>>>
>>> Toby Mendel
>>> (Centre for Law & Democracy)
>>>
>>> And Panthea Lee - applying for either Canada or Taiwan (it's unclear).
>>> Reboot
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.ogphub.org/blog/here-are-the-37-candidates-for-the-ogp-steering-committee/
>>>
>>>
>>> Michael Lenczner
>>> CEO, Ajah
>>> http://www.ajah.ca
>>> 514-708-5112
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Tracey P. Lauriault
>> http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
>> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
>> http://datalibre.ca/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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-- 
Tracey P. Lauriault
http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
http://datalibre.ca/
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