We hosted a half-day session on March 11th with representatives from The Government of Canada and Yukon Government on the topic of Open Government and Open Data. Here are some key points:

What is Open Government?

It’s exactly what it sounds like – An open government is transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

By making data and initiatives more accessible to the public, it results in more meaningful and trustworthy policies.

Canada is part of (and one of the founding members) of the Open Government Partnership. 77 other national governments and 150 local jurisdictions. Members of this organization are required to:

1. Sign an open government declaration.
2. Commit to developing national action plans on open government on a cyclical basis (2-4 years). These plans must be co-created with the public (not just written internally & published).
3. Commit to public reporting on progress.

Why Open Government?

Our governments (both local & federal) collect a LOT of data, some of which can be extremely valuable for researchers, businesses, journalist, etc. Opening that up to the public not only improves transparency and builds trust, but also benefits the country and its citizens in general.

What’s the impact?

Mexico: Tackled childhood obesity by making the labelling of food more available.

Brazil: Development and implementation of curriculum to increase digital skills among the elderly.

Open Data Portals:

• Government of Yukon: https://open.yukon.ca/data
• Government of Canada: https://search.open.canada.ca/opendata/
• Most provinces have their own separate open data portal.

Engagement for the development of our next National Action Plan

We then spent a majority of the session discussing suggestions for improvements and ideas for our next National Action Plan. Below are a few example ideas:

Designing more Inclusive Government Programs & Services

• More plain and accessible language used on government websites.
• Provide multi-lingual availability of government services.
• Increase access to important records for indigenous peoples.
• Example of bad vs. good accessibility:
  • EI for parental leave (14-page complicated process) vs. CCB. (1-click)
• Making it easy to reach someone on the phone for each specific program.
  • Aids with visually impaired.
  • Important for complicated situations that aren’t easily covered by standard explanations on the websites.
  • Also ensure that they are properly trained. Often get different answers from different people.
  • Better yet, equip them with cross territory/province/border understanding. Some programs are jurisdictional and Yukoner’s are often travelling between locations.
    • e.g. with medical coverage, if you’re often travelling between provinces for extended time, you may end up in a situation where you don’t qualify for any healthcare.

Inclusive & Meaningful Participation

• Needing to create an account to login disincentivizes some people from accessing and utilizing open data portals.
• Ads might not be effective, most people don’t like to click on ads.
• Spreading awareness by meeting people where they’re at.
  • e.g. If targeting small businesses: incubators/acceleratorss/SMB funding orgs like Futurpreneur, BDC, etc.
• Simpler surveys: people disengage when it’s too long.

Civic space & Democracy

• Funding unbiased (not associated/influenced by any political party) news agencies.
• Creating a centralized source for fact-checking.
• Educating people to think critically – evaluate information vs. emotion, is something trying to persuade you?
• Numbers/Data needs context.
• Reports and good, but if reported with biased lens, it can be manipulative.
  • e.g. No murders this year – we have the lowest rate in CA, 3 murders – we now have the highest in CA. Can be skewed because of our small community.
• Paying students to run/help with the polls, might help with getting younger people involved.
  • Build it into their curriculum – students might not be able to take time off to participate.
• Better regulations around attack campaigns/Make slander & misinformation laws stricter.
  • e.g. make it easier to sue a party if they make false claims.
  • Should encourage campaigning to focus more on policies and priorities instead of making it a popularity contest.
• Mandatory voting?
  • Like some countries – Australia, where you get fined if you don’t (enforcement might not need to be strict, but just making it a legal requirement should improve participation).
  • Or like in Singapore, if you didn’t vote, you’re not allowed to vote again in the future until you provide a detailed written justification on your lack of previous involvement.
• Creating a neutral platform with information on candidates from both parties.
  • e.g. with newspaper: Ask 5 questions and you can see how each candidate responds.

Open Data

A core feature of Open Governments is making government data as easy to access and use with as few limitations as possible (e.g. allowing for commercial use). The concept of Open Data isn’t limited to Open Government and can be something that a private organization makes accessible to the public as well.

Why Open Data?

Allows others to engage with your dataset and make observations that you may have not even considered.

Examples of direct economic benefits:

• Transit data from cities is used by Google Maps.
• A tourism business might use seasonal data to better predict and plan their activities.

Types of Open Government Data

• Geospatial (visualized on a map)
• Tabular (in a spreadsheet)
• Unstructured information (e.g. qualitative reports)

Privacy

Privacy is understandably a big concern when we think of open data – organizations and governments that make data open to public take steps to maintain privacy of individuals in their published datasets. For instance:

• Aggregating data
• Suppressing small sample sizes
• Random rounding
• etc. (An example would be Airbnb’s location estimate – the house might not be exactly in the centre of the circle, it’s randomized in the circle).

Yukon’s Open Data Portal

• https://open.yukon.ca/data
• ~4000 visits a month.
• You can even view ATIPP (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy) requests data that other people have made.
  • ATIPP is when someone makes a request for government to disclose something. For instance:
    • Any records related to the Yukon RCMP issuing a press release about the arrest and charges against [NAME OMMITTED].
    • Date and nature of any changes in the registration status of any motor vehicle using the Yukon license plate ESR94. A list of the possible statuses of registration of a Yukon motor vehicle, such as newly registered, renewed, expired, etc.

Activities, Tools & Platforms developed by Yukon Government for Open Data

ETL (Export Transform Load)

• Export: Obtaining data from a source
• Transform: Cleaning, Standardizing, or Combining data so that it fits into a data schema for a target system.
• Load: Moving it into the target system to be used – for reporting, analysis, etc.
• Tools we (Yukon Government) use: FME, python scripts.
• Power Automate (by Microsoft): To automate business workflows outside of our Geographic Information System (GIS) and FME platforms.

Applications:

Wildfirehub

• Tech used: Hub, FME, Survey 123.

Flood Atlas

• For flood advisories, hydrologist forecasting, flood maps, community consultation.
• Tech used: Hub, Experience Building, Survey 123, Power Automate.
• Final flood maps are official engineer stamped flood maps and available as PDFs.

Emergency Management Common Operating Picture

• Internal Resource and not available to public due because data is not privacy compliant)
• For near real-time observation of emergencies.
• Better situational awareness and response.
• Damage/site assessment
• Evacuation routes.

Community Statistics
Statistics data, population, demographic, income, etc.

Vertisee

• LiDAR data (high resolution mapping)
• Who uses it?
  • Business, communities, environment, forestry, mining, indigenous partners, transportation.

Water Conditions Application

• Public beta, launching Spring 2025.
• Flow levels & water level (height).