Hey, all you Canadian data geeks, Statistics Canada revised its Labour Force Survey (LFS) to base it on the 2006 Census population counts. As a result, to facilitate access to the revised estimates, LFS data on CANSIM will be free of charge from January 28 to February 11. For more information, head over to
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/110128/dq110128b-eng.htm
Citizen Dan is a free, open source system available to any community and its citizens to measure and track indicators of local well being.
It can be branded and themed for local needs. It is under active development by Structured Dynamics with support from a number of innovative cities.
It is a complete turnkey environment for collecting and measuring and tracking and reporting indicators of local well being. It is a data appliance and network (DAN), specifically oriented around community indicator systems.
http://demo.citizen-dan.org/
Some new websites have popped up recently that allow Canadian citizens to better see what government is doing. Launched this past week, openparliament.ca is a website that. As it says on the About page of the site:
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.