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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Canadian government improving database accessibility: Clement
OTTAWA is moving to make reams of government data publicly available, an initiative Treasury Board President Tony Clement said isn't at odds with his government's reputation for information control.
"The evidence is that, when you look at this open-government initiative, we have made strides on all three legs of the stool -- open information, open data and open dialogue," Clement told a crowd at the Free Press News Café Thursday.
Clement was in Winnipeg to tour a prototype lab in the Exchange District and to tout his government's open-data initiative, a plan to post government databases online so they are available to researchers, journalists, non-profits and businesses interested in making mobile applications.
Clement said Ottawa has collected valuable data for years on everything from pollution emissions to border wait times to building permits. But that data has been kept "tucked away like your grandmother's silver." A new portal has been set up as a one-stop shop for those databases, and Clement said there are plans to improve the search and download functions and add more databases to the list.
The Harper government has been widely criticized for muzzling staff, scientists and backbench MPs, cutting off debate in the House of Commons, withholding information from the public and independent officers of Parliament and obsessively micromanaging its image.
But Clement said that criticism is unwarranted, saying Ottawa has tried to improve and streamline the access-to-information process and the public's access to government data.
"I don't think we're too far behind, but we do have to move smartly forward on this," said Clement. "The 2.0 version of this is going to be pretty decent."
ASSENTWORKS
Thursday morning, Treasury Board President Tony Clement toured a little-known gem in Winnipeg's business world -- the AssentWorks prototype lab in the Exchange District. With its walls of tools, metalworking equipment and chipboard walls, it looks a little like a homemade industrial arts classroom. In fact, it's where local entrepreneurs can access expensive equipment to build prototypes in order to test out new inventions and woo investors.
Clement played a new, electronic version of the Whac-A-Mole game being developed by Aquaventronics and checked out a 3D printer that creates plastic models of prototype designs. Also at AssentWorks is a prototype of a new machine that uses light to separate good kernels of grain from defective ones. Inventor David Prystupa says the machine will be field tested this fall and next, and could earn farmers $30 to $40 extra per bushel.
AssentWorks is a non-profit venture that opened last fall, and it's already broken even thanks to membership dues and sponsors.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 13, 2012 B3
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