A cross-post from my friend Tracey over at datalibre.ca

Access to public data is one of the most popular VOTE topics in the submissions on the Digital Economy Consultation site. Here are the VOTING submissions that ask for open data, open access and open government.

1. Open Access to Canada’s Public Sector Information and Data is looking for some votes.
2. Improved access to publicly-funded data associated with research data Require open access to results of research funded by the Canadian taxpayer
3. Open Access to Canadian research
4. National Archives Content Online
5. Créer une licence « Creative Commons » du Canada
6. Protect and enhance digital freedoms for education

There has also been some writing about the consultation:

Michael Geist: Opening Up Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy

David Eaves: Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy: Two quick actions you can take

Take a few minutes to login and vote! If you can, provide a comment about how access to data has improved or will improve your work.

You can do great stuff with prosaic municipal data, and some cities, from Nanaimo to Toronto, are passing open data resolutions and starting to share information. Things are looking up. Communities are forming. But, unlike other countries, Canada doesn’t yet have a federal open data plan or culture. We can do better.

Also check out howdtheyvote.ca, a site that provides information on how your member of parliament has been voting, complete with “complete with voting history, dissension, attendance and speaking habits.”

There is an article in the Globe & Mail titled “If you won’t tell us about our MPs, we’ll do it for you” that summarizes some of these recent developments and provides the context for greater transparency and accountability from all levels of government.

The Atlas of Canada, produced by Natural Resources Canada in partnership with Statistics Canada, presents a series of maps and accompanying analysis of national and regional data results from the 2006 Census. The first releases focus on Canadian population, age, marital status, immigration, visible minorities and mode of transportation. The maps are available on the Atlas of Canada website (http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/featureditems/index.html).

Future releases will cover topics such as educational attainment, the labour force, languages, housing and income.

Visible Minority Population 2006

This comes courtesy of Pundits Guide (www.punditsguide.ca) in the following post:

http://www.punditsguide.ca/2009/07/calling-all-mappers.php

I think I must have been among the three people Pundits Guide mentioned that jumped for joy at this announcement.

To download the files, go to: http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/download/electoral/2008/

To get the election results data by polling division, go to Elections Canada website: http://www.elections.ca/intro.asp?section=pas&document=index&lang=e

Then, after choosing the election you want, make sure to click on the Go to the raw data version (for researchers)

For example, to access the data from the last federal election, the link is: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/resval/ovr_40ge.asp?prov=&lang=e

So go get the data and start making some maps!

The Handbook on Geospatial Infrastructure in Support of Census Activities takes into account the recent technological developments in the geographic information area, which have been reflected in the recently adopted United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2, and puts into the hands of census planners and related personnel a technical guide on the contemporary methods, tools, and best practices that would support their census mapping operations more efficiently. An official copy of the Handbook is now available on-line and set to be published in print form soon.

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/2010_PHC/Publications/Series_F103_more.htm

The Atlas will soon be going live and I hope it starts a conversation between geographers, geomaticians, data providers and colleagues and front line workers in the social sector. We discovered that you have to mortgage the house to purchase data to study homelessness at a national scale in this country! Surely, that cannot be the sign of a democracy!

Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness

Executive Summary

The Pilot Cybercartographic Atlas of Risk of Homelessness is the first national and city scale mapping endeavour that represents risk of homelessness data in an interactive fashion using timelines, different scales and associated text and charts including regional and local scales. The Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness renders in maps and interactive graphs well defined and accepted Canadian risk indicators such as vacancy rates and rental markets, rent geared to income units, families spending 50% of their income on rent and housing starts. When these indicators are visualized in an engaging manner readers can more readily distinguish trends, patterns and issues that cannot be conveyed in static data tables. Atlas modules include the visualization of indicators across time at three scales: Canada, 23 municipalities and 3 featured cities/metropolitan areas. The City of Toronto provides data to show their aging social housing stock; poverty and the disproportionate spending on rent are explored in City of Calgary neighbourhoods while la Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) tells the story of social housing and housing affordability for lower-income renting populations. An interactive GraphoMap shows Vacancy rates, housing starts, and 50%+ spent on rent for 24 cities at three time points while the Canada map shows the rate of change between renters and owners over time. A map of Canada shows the rate of change between renters and owners and clearly demonstrates data issues associated with Canada’s ever changing and incompatible statistical geographic units.

The Atlas is intended as a pilot to demonstrate to a variety of stakeholders that cartographers, geographers and subject matter specialists can work together to create engaging, understandable and useful visual content representing the structural issues of homelessness in Canada. Modules are created with stakeholders so that they may use these to inform public policy. The Atlas is designed using the Nunaliit Cybercartographic Atlas Framework which is an open source software designed at the GCRC specifically to ensure that others can add content to it. For example, a research group, a community group or other cities may have data they have collected during the course of their work or research that could easily be rendered into maps of this kind and be added as a module. This is a living Atlas created specifically for that purpose – to continuously expand on this story and to disseminate the data in a way that is easily understandable. The Atlas could expand to include not only risk of homelessness data but also population health and homelessness, absolute homelessness and housing themes along the continuum of homelessness. Finally, access to and cost of public statistical data were considered barriers to the creation of some content, especially in the social sector.

Google Earth / Élection fédérale 2008 au Canada / 2008 Federal Election in Canada