Buy Canada a beer

Fri,03 Jul 2009 10:36 GMT -4:00 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/24437

news view | P2P | Politics:- It was Canada Day, yesterday. And because it fell almost in the middle of the week, a lot of fellow citizens celebrated it the weekend before, or are kicking it off today with July 4 coming up.

If there was an online Canadian parliament, law professor Michael Geist would be an MP. There isn’t — not officially, anyway — but meanwhile, he  continues to point up items of interest to anyone who cares about what’s happening, here, and yesterday, he cited VisibleGovernment.ca, which launched Beers For Canada.

It encourages Canadians to, “support transparency by buying your country a beer,”  he said.

Of course, we shouldn’t need special projects to make sure our elected representatives do what they’re supposed to do. But the sad reality is: it’s necessary and VisibleGovernment.ca says it wants government leaders and organizations to, “share their information openly, and work with developers to build tools and websites that make government information more accessible to average citizens”.

The organisationm says funds raised by Beers for Canada will be used for:

Creating new tools and websites that encourage more open communication between government and citizens.

Launching the Code For Canada application design competition that awards prizes to people who build apps that provide visualization, analysis, and access to federal government data sets.

Working with other open government organizations like The Sunlight Foundation in the US and MySociety in the UK to bring tools they’ve created to Canadian screens, and to share Canadian-made applications with others.

Encouraging government openness in public forums, helping government organizations to share their data, showcasing examples of open government, and promoting the benefits of transparency in public office.

There’s, “tremendous value in open government data and greater transparency,” says Geist.

JN

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July, 2009




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