This past week loads of the OpenGov vocalists were all abuzz when it was revealed that finally, after all these years, Stats Canada is emerging from the dark ages and will be making data freely available to the public – although at this time “data” is still undefined so we aren’t really too sure yet which data products and which spatial data sets (if any) will be made available to Joe public. Obviously a good move, I myself am still a little suspect as to just how much data will be made available, and in what format(s), but kudos to the agency for caving to public pressure to be a little more transparent and open.
Unlike many of the flag waving, Canadian open data enthusiasts, I’m not really throwing a party about the news – of, FYI, there’s still no official news about this on any official government website yet – I’ve always been quite disturbed by the fact that Canada Census data products have been locked up and held ransom over the years. Kudos to Stats Can if this is true … let’s see how long this takes to come online to everyone and PLEASE, let’s all hope that they also come up with a website where one can easily locate and access these data (see current census data products here). See more about Stats Canada here and see details of the official post that broke the news HERE at the Embassy