Open Data Muscle

Canadian open data needs to get pumped up! In the past year, the UK government has announced a 10 million pound investment into the  Open Data Institute and the Google Foundation gave over 1.6 million dollars to the UK group MySociety and over 2.1 million to the US Sunlight Foundation. In Canada, we have yet to see a similar engagement from a government, a private individual or foundations.

Without adequate resources, the open data enthusiasts in Canada will be unable to compete with their UK or US counterparts. The limited supply of software developers who are passionate about technology, transparency and government will be drawn to companies that can put bread on the table. Jurisdictions with political leadership and who offer long term financial backing to talented developers and designers will develop the open data ecosystem first. Their technologies will eventually be implemented in Canada, when the data becomes available, but the brains and jobs will stay firmly planted offshore.

Canada’s Scientific Research and Development program supports thousands of tech companies across Canada, but non-profits are ineligible. Québec poured money into video games and aerospace, Ontario supported Waterloo’s RIM and the car industry and Alberta has the Tar Sands. We need an investment program for government data analysis and use. If open data apps can improve government and public service performance by just 1%, the returns will be massive.

Despite lots of talk, no provincial, municipal or federal government in Canada has shown leadership on open data in the form that matters most – money. Like it or not, without substantial financial support from government, projects such as OpenParliament, What Do They Know, Represent or MaMairie cannot survive. In addition to user facing applications, groups across the country need support to ensure our outdated access to information laws are reformed, that democratic institutions are modernized and that citizens take action on pressing social issues. If Sweden brought its deficit from nearly 80% of GDP to under 33% through the modernization of its democratic institutions, we can do the same and open government is part of the solution.

Jake Porway, of DataKind, recently wrote a great piece in the Harvard Business Review outlining the need to increase the financing behind open data. We need to somehow convince Canadian foundations, citizens, companies and governments of the pressing need to invest real cash into open data and apps. Without the build up of talent and resources, weekend Hackathon projects will continue to be just that: weekend projects. We need institutional capacity to affect political change. Who will have the courage to take a risk on Canada’s burgeoning open data community?