1

Peggy Taillon President and CEO Canadian Council on Social Development Community Data Program P.O. Box 13713 Kanata, ON K2K 1X6 Canada +1-613.236.8977 Ext. 1 taillon@ccsd.ca Website: www.ccsd.ca

Date: February 6, 2012

Community Data Program

Civil Society Participation April 2012 OGP Annual Meeting

Cover Letter

Dear Open Government Partnership;

The Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD) would like to advance Harvey

Low, its Toronto Consortium Lead for the Community Data Program (CDP) and a

founding and active member of Community Data Canada (CDC), as the civil society

representative for Canada at the Open Government Partnership Annual Meetings in

Brazil. Harvey has been actively engaged in the open government field as an

experienced leader in Canadian municipal and non-profit sectors for over two decades.

He has been instrumental at strengthening the social, environmental and planning

capacity of civil society organizations to be actively engaged participants in evidence

based planning in the City or Toronto and nationally with the CDP, CDC and the

Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).

Harvey, as an open government and data access and use advocate would be an excellent

contributor in the OGP thematic discussions and would provide valuable input from

multiple sectors (e.g., health, social, cultural, urban planning, and environment) into

OGP’s overall strategic vision for the future. Furthermore, as a recognized leader in this

area, he is able and committed to bringing the outcomes of those discussions back to

Canada and infuse them into the operations of civil society organizations and public

sector institutions across many sectors. He will also solicit input from organizations in

Canada on what they would like to have said in Brazil.

He has been active as a champion in the development and evolution of Toronto’s open

data initiatives, brokered numerous local data sharing agreements, and presented on the

topic in the community and nationally. Harvey is currently a key representative on the

City of Toronto’s new Open Government Committee – an internal committee

established to promote transparency, accountability and accessibility of good

2

governance. He has also served on numerous city and inter-governmental Task Forces,

as a key researcher developing approaches and translating data into effective program

and service interventions.

To date open government discussions have not included perspectives from grass roots

and thematic public sector data and information users, producers, and those actively

involved in deliberating with government. The discussion to date has primarily been

within CIO and IT sectors. Harvey with his experience at facilitating collaborative

access to, the sharing and visualization of government and private sector data to

facilitate collective research to inform public policy, would be an asset and could infuse

the discussions with a new and unique perspective from a well-established open

government and open data community of practice.

The Community Data Program & Community Data Canada

The Community Data Program (CDP) is a flagship program of the Canadian Council on

Social Development (CCSD) developed in the mid-1990s as a gateway for municipalities

and community sector organizations to access public data and other private and non-

profit sector data providers to monitor and report on social and economic development

trends within their communities. The CDP is a national network of 21 community data

consortia present in most big Canadian cities. Members include more than 50

municipalities and 1000+ users, including local police, social planning councils, health

and family service agencies, school boards, United Ways and other organizations

working in the fields of public policy.

The three core purposes to the CDP are to: purchase, facilitate and negotiate access to

public data, exchange knowledge and train organizations to analyze community data

and use it for better decision making and to communicate and disseminate the results as

widely as possible. The Toronto Consortium, under Harvey’s leadership includes 27

civil society organizations in areas of public health, social services, urban planning, and

philanthropy to name a few. The 150 individual members of the Toronto consortium are

statisticians, demographers, researchers, planners, public officials and thematic data

experts who meet in person and on-line on an ongoing basis to share best practices,

expertise, build products and use those products to inform public policy on a number of

issues.

For example, data from the CDP are now being used as a resource for doctors to better

understand the communities in which their clients reside; as the basis to create

sophisticated place-based neighbourhood monitoring tools for local decision-makers;

and as an information resource by the private sector in the development of new

innovative mapping tools to name a few. More examples of how government and other

sectors have been engaged in open dialogue on a number public policy issues can be

found on the CDP website.

3

The CDP recognizes that not all data users and information product producers are

engineers and new media experts and has for close to three decades been engaged in

bridging technology, media and data expertise while also building grassroots capacity to

access and use data and government information in new innovative ways. It has created

a new systematic way of accessing and analysing information across sectors in order to

better understand urban issues from multiple perspectives. For 25 years the CDP has

actively been engaged in open government and advocating for more data and

information sharing, but also in helping government be more open and transparent

regarding public policy decision making.

The CCSD is a registered not for profit and charitable organization that has for more

than 90 years been a key proponent of “unconventional” policies and programs that

Canadians now consider essential: Old Age Pension program, Unemployment

Insurance, the National Child Benefit and tax credits for the working poor to name a few

of the programs that represent the core values of Canadians. Also, the CCSD with the

CDP and ethno cultural visible minority organizations in Canada has led the charge on

the issue of the cancellation of the Canadian Census creating a coalition of close to 500

data using and producing agencies (http://datalibre.ca/census-watch/) and is the key

applicant to a Federal Court challenge entitled the Equal Right to Be Counted

advocating for the reinstatement of a set of identity based questions into the official

census.

Furthermore, the CCSD established the Community Data Canada (CDC) which is the

first working group comprised of key federal, provincial, municipal and civil society

organizations as a permanent collaborative forum in support of improved access to and

use of small area data for decision making. To date CCSD with the Federation of

Canadian Municipalities (FCM), three multi-sector roundtables have been convened

with more than 100 pan Canadian multi-sector members on issues pertaining to open

government; evidence based decision-making capacity building and public participation

deliberations on public policy.

Member of the CCSD have also been invited to speak at Federal House of Commons

Committees on issues pertaining to the census, open government and open data, have

submitted reports to the two recent open government consultations, the latest will be

used to inform the OGP meetings in Brazil, and had the highest number of public votes

in two submissions to the previous Industry Canada Digital Economy Consultations.

They have also participated in consultations regarding the archiving and preservation of

scientific data and research data. They have been invited to speak at Open Access Week

events, the Canadian Library Association, and a number of open government

conferences organized by legal IT and open source communities on issues pertaining to

open government and open data, and have advised Canadian Open Data cities on topics

of licensing, the development of common practices and app contest judging.

4

It is the view of the CDP; open data should also encompass the philosophies of Open

Government and Open Analysis. In other words, OD should not only be about "free and

open data", but also about a cultural shift among public, non-government and the

private sector, to provide and work (where opportunities arise) collaboratively to

understand how such data can be transformed into knowledge and processes to better

inform social and economic issues. The CDP and CDC have opened government

channels to be more receptive to not only sharing but also collaborating and partnering

with new sectors on a variety of public policy issues. As such, it is hoped that

representation internationally in the dialogue of open government can include different

perspectives beyond only data, IT and new media perspective.

Philosophies & Approaches towards Open Government

The benefits of open data and open government for the development/hacker and new

media community were the first and obvious ones. However, the benefits to community

development, citizen engagement in the broader goals of social inclusion, economic

development, and urban, environmental planning and hard infrastructural planning

have been less evident and less discussed. It is one thing to improve access to bus

schedules and quite another to have open and engaged discussions on issues related to

the delivery and access to transit. It is this aspect the CDP brings to open government

discussions, its experience in working on real public policy issues in an ongoing and

sustainable way using public data and working with citizens to deliberate in transit,

social and environmental committees to name a few. The rapprochement between

government and citizen has been the main focus of the CDP and the CDC. This work has

been national in scope but grounded in informed decision making and public policy

deliberations locally.

Harvey Low has been a participant, partner, and leader at Canadian scale with the

CCSD, CDP, CDC and the FCM and locally at the City of Toronto by negotiating data use

and access agreements, building civil society and community capacity to engage in

government deliberations with the use of public data and at facilitating collaboration

among divergent multi-sector interests in these areas. Toronto Wellbeing is a new on-

line neighbourhood monitoring tool (www.toronto.ca/wellbeing), and an example of the

kind of community of practice user centered apps Harvey has been instrumental at

creating. Launched with much media attention in July 2011, it answered the call of civil

society groups for access to public data and information in a format they can understand

and use. This product integrates data from almost every sector within local government,

Federal data, and key community partners such as hospitals. Wellbeing Toronto is but

one of the many open data, government and access products Harvey has inspired.

Toronto Wellbeing is used by civil society organizations to inform community and

government deliberations on any number of issues. Also, Harvey has the diplomatic,

technical, social and cultural expertise, the respect and support of his peers and the

5

actors he actively works with on an ongoing basis to advance and implement OGP plans,

priorities and strategies in over 100 organizations across Canada while also being able to

represent the wants, needs and issues of civil society organizations on this file in Brazil.

Please see Harvey’s CV for more information.

The OGP Conference – Contributions, Learnings and Next Steps:

Attending this conference will yield mutual opportunities for advancement of the Open

Government philosophy. First, we are willing to share our expertise and practices with

the OGP partners. We can offer a workshop or side event to share our work. Examples

can include presentations and demonstrations on some of the innovative approaches

and applications that have been developed in Canada through the CDP, and other

examples in government and the community. Secondly, we seek to learn from the best-

practices of other representatives, particularly in the areas of civic engagement and

partnership opportunities with non-government stakeholders and the private sector.

Lastly, the learnings from the conference will be brought home to explore the

opportunities for more outreach and inclusive approaches. For example

The CCSD and the CDP will undertake a campaign to educate its members and partners

in the culture of open government as expressed by the OGP. The CCSD and CDP have

been doing this work, but framed in the discourse of community planning. In addition,

the CDP will expand its ongoing marketing of the data consortium, training of new

users, and new opportunities to integrate such data into the policy and community

planning realm and will add the issues and priorities coming from the OGP in Brazil. In

Canada, the open data and open government community and the CCSD and CDP

community are very different but can mutually benefit each other and it is hoped that

participation at the OGP in Brazil will build a bridge and foster new and meaningful

collaborations. This will be a cultural shift for both.

Website of organizations mentioned in the letter:

Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD): http://www.ccsd.ca/

Community Data Program (CDP): http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/home

Toronto CDP Consortium: http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/TorontoConsortium

Community Data Canada (CDC): http://www.cdc-

dcc.info/mandate.php?lang=en

Wellbeing Toronto: http://map.toronto.ca/wellbeing

Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Quality of Life Reporting System:

http://www.fcm.ca/home/programs/quality-of-life-reporting-system/member-

communities.htm

6

CCSD and CDP Transparent governance structure:

The CCSD is a registered not for profit and charitable organization. Its Board of

Directors is listed on its website, it holds AGMs with its members, convenes quarterly

board meetings and numerous ad hoc meetings with the Board, committees and

working groups as required. These are all public. Policy initiatives, projects and

programs are fully published on its website along with a full list of its friends and

partners.

The Community Data Program (CDP) is a national consortium of local data user

networks that provides a gateway through which municipalities and community based

organizations access social data. A detailed description of the program is available here

(http://communitydata-donneescommunautaires.ca/node/7566 ). The CDP is led by an

Advisory Committee of its members and users (http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/Steering-Pilotage) which reports to the CCSD board on an

ongoing basis. The CDP is also directed by the following four working groups: Data

Purchase & Access; Capacity Building and Infrastructure WG; Sharing Information WG

and Build and Foster Partnerships WG; which are comprised by members who have the

desire and expertise to fulfill the terms of references of these WGs

(http://communitydata-donneescommunautaires.ca/MembersList).

Local data user networks (i.e. consortia) each have their own terms of reference and

ways to self-organize however each has a lead who attends quarterly teleconference

meetings and one yearly face to face meeting while working groups meet as required.

Also, regional consortia hold local meetings and capacity building workshops. The

Advisory Committee and consortia list their members, contact information, terms of

reference, and accomplishments on their own pages along with minutes and project

notes and decisions. Finally, members are considered users, and all members are

consulted on issues related to changes to the website, for usability testing and are

surveyed during each consortia cycle to assess data use and capacity building priorities,

the last survey and its results are available here (http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/PurchaseAccessAchatAccess).

Annual Audited Financial Statements:

All financial statements and external audits are published on the CCSD website

(http://www.ccsd.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227&Itemid=2

23&lang=en).

The CCSD is a membership funded organization and receives program and project

specific grants from government, foundations and other philanthropic organizations.

The Community Data Program is funded by consortia members and an explanation of

7

how the fees are negotiated is available here (http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/ConsortiaWG).

The Consortia also receives in-kind contributions from its members and leads and

committee members contribute their time and expertise in-kind.

Publish operational budget:

The CCSD operational budget is included in its financial audits. Budgets for the CDP

are discussed among leads and the Advisory committee and are published here

(http://communitydata-donneescommunautaires.ca/ConsortiaWG).

Publish annual narrative and financial reports:

See above.

Funding Requirements:

All travel, room and board. The CCSD is a not-for-Profit registered Charity organization.

A CV/resume:

Attached

Endorsements:

Solicitation for endorsements was done by invitation to a select number of members,

supporters and partners. The CDP is not a social media based organization; CDP is a

member based organization of relationships and project based activities, members meet

online, in teleconferences, at round-tables and at face to face meetings. The letter was

drafted among members of the CDP and input was provided by a number of groups and

members:

21 jurisdictional leaders of the Community Data Program of the

Canadian Council on Social Development listed here, any of them can be

contacted and the contacts are listed here: http://communitydata-

donneescommunautaires.ca/MembersList

Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), Michael Buda, Director,

Policy and Research, 24, rue Clarence Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 5P3, +1 613-

907-6271, mbuda@fcm.ca, www.fcm.ca ,

The FCM founded in 1901 is the first national meeting of Canadian municipal leaders

and its first political initiative was to convince the federal government to create

8

legislation that would give communities more control over the actions of utility

companies within their boundaries. The FCM today include 2000 of Canada's largest

cities as well as small urban and rural communities, and 21 provincial and territorial

municipal associations. The FCM actively advocates to have the needs of municipalities

- and their citizens - reflected in federal policies and programs and ongoing programs

are: Quality of Life Reporting System, Green Municipal Fund, Community

Infrastructure partnership Program, Women in Local Government, Affordable Housing,

Partners in Climate Protection, and a number of international programs.

Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic

(CIPPIC), David Fewer, Director, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, 57

Louis Pasteur St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5. +1 -613-562-5800 ext.2558,

dfewer@uottawa.ca, http://www.cippic.ca/

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) was established at the

University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law in the fall of 2003. It is the first legal clinic of its

kind in Canada. CIPPICs dual mission is: to fill voids in public policy debates on

technology law issues, ensure balance in policy and law-making processes, and provide

legal assistance to under-represented organizations and individuals on matters

involving the intersection of law and technology; and to provide a high quality and

rewarding clinical legal education experience to students of law. CIPPIC ongoing

projects are: Copyright, Privacy, Telecom Policy, Lawful Access, Open Licensing,

Identity Theft and Consumer Protection.

Woodgreen Community Services, Diane Dyson, Director of Research &

Public Policy, 815 Danforth Avenue, Suite 100

Toronto, Ontario, M4J 1L2, 416-645-6000 x 1100, ddyson@woodgreen.org,

http://www.woodgreen.org/

Woodgreen was founded in 1937 and has grown to 25 locations throughout Toronto’s

East End. It has a staff of 500, hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of

volunteers and serves more than 37,000 individuals and families each year.

WoodGreen is a community-based agency in Toronto that provides opportunities for

thousands of Torontonians. They help people find safe, affordable housing, and assist

internationally-trained professionals enter the job market. They provide parents access

childcare, children and youth access after-school programs; help newcomers settle in to

Canadian life, assist homeless and marginalized people get off the streets, help youth

find meaningful employment and training, seniors live independently, and much more.

Open North Inc., James McKinney, Executive Director, 1200 St-Alexandre,

Suite 408, Montreal, QC H3B 3H5, 514-247-0223, james@opennorth.ca,

http://opennorth.ca/

9

Open North is a Canadian non-partisan non-profit with open source principles. Its

mission is to create web sites and services that citizens and government alike can use to

engage one another, with the ambition to make democracy better in Canada. Open

North promotes open dialogue by offering an online budget consultation platform to all

Canadian municipalities, and by running a website which helps citizens track and

interact with their local elected officials. It promotes open data through a free database

of every electoral district and representative in Canada and through a variety of local

websites.

Social Planning Toronto, Beth Wilson, Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst,

2 Carlton Street, Suite 1001, Toronto, ON M5B 1J3, (416) 351-0095,

bwilson@socialplanningtoronto.org, http://www.socialplanningtoronto.org/

Social Planning Toronto is a non-government organization committed to independent

social planning at local and city-wide levels to improve the quality of life for all people in

Toronto. It is committed to diversity, social and economic justice, and active civic

participation in all aspects of community life, through program priorities in the areas of

Policy Research and Analysis, Community Capacity Building, Community Education

and Advocacy, and Social Reporting.

Center For Community Informatics Research, Development &

Training (CIRDT) and Journal of Community Informatics, Michael

Gurstein, Executive Director, and Editor in Chief of the open access,

gurstein@gmail.com, http://www.communityinformatics.net/index.htm, and

http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej

The Center undertakes research, development and training in support of the range of

Community Informatics initiatives undertaken both in Canada, South Africa and

elsewhere internationally. The Center works with communities, ICT practitioners,

researchers, governments and agencies as a resource for enabling and empowering

communities with Information and Communications Technologies.

eGovFutures Group Open by Design, Jury Konga, Principal, +1-905-640-

7377, C. +1-647-393-8045, jkonga@sympatico.ca,

www.slideshare.net/jurykonga, www.slideshare.net/jkonga

The eGovFutures Group is a private sector consulting group and its principal Chairs the

Gov 2.0 Committee of the Municipal Information Systems Association of Ontario

(MISA), and is the creator and administrator at MuniGov.CA and has informed the

strategic plans of city and civil society open government and open data initiatives.

Datalibre.ca co-Authors and founding members of Civicaccess.ca, Tracey P.

Lauriault and Hugh McGuire, of and , tlauriau@gmail.com

10

The Civicaccess.ca list is the Canadian equivalent to the UK Open Knowledge

Foundation Open Government list and it was founded in 2005 as a forum for

individuals from all sectors to discuss open data and open government in Canada. The

Datalibre.ca blog was the first of its kind in Canada discussing issues of open data and

open government it went online in 2005 and is co-authored with Hugh McGuire the

founder of Librivox.ca. It is also one of the key resources regarding the cancellation of

the Canadian census, open data and open government. Lauriault’s CV is available here

(http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/cv-linear/).

City of Toronto Social Development Finance & Administration

Division. Chris Brillinger, Executive Director, 100 Queen Street West 14E,

Toronto, M5H-2N2, 416-392-8608. cbrillin@toronto.ca.

The City of Toronto's Social Development, Finance & Administration Division provides

leadership and support to the Deputy City Manager of the Citizen Centred Services “A”

Cluster and City Council to:

o develop and implement a social inclusion and community safety agenda

for the city

o foster safe and strong neighbourhoods and communities

o promote community engagement

o advance life skill opportunities for youth

shakethepillars.com, George Irish, shakethepillars@gmail.com

George Irish is an independent consultant advising non-profits and charities on using

digital new media to engage the public for social change. He has worked with global

NGOs including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Oxfam to further their use of

open source technologies, such as Drupal, Plone and Wordpress for activism,

fundraising and mobilization.

Geographic and Numeric Information Systems (GANIS), Ted

Hildebrandt, Director of Social Planning; and founding member of the Social

Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO), , thildebrandt@cdhalton.ca,

http://ganis.spno.ca/, 905-632-1975;

GANIS was formed in 1996 to build capacity and acquire applications to conduct

community based research using government data for community based research

organizations in Ontario. Today, 14 Social Planning Councils in Ontario have in-house

access to census data, elementary mapping capabilities, applications and the capacity to

do geographic and statistical analysis. GANIS researchers also pool their resources to

conduct Ontario wide analysis and building the capacity of their local networks to do

evidence-based decision making.

11

Environics Analytics, Doug Norris, Senior Vice President and Chief

Demographer55 York Street, 10th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5H 1R7,

Doug.Norris@environicsanalytics.ca, 613-592-3402

http://www.environicsanalytics.ca

Environics Analytics is a leading Canadian geodemographics service, data and

application developments consulting firm which also provides data and expertise for

businesses, government, and non-government sectors. They provide research, licensed

data and systems, and develop custom business solutions.

Community Foundation of Canada, Cindy Lindsay, Director of Member

Services, 519.843.6726, clindsay@cfc-fcc.ca, http://www.cfc-fcc.ca/home.cfm

The Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) is the national membership organization

for Canada’s Community Foundations which is a Canadian movement for community

vitality, represented by 180 members. CFC was established in 1992 to connect and

support this growing network of local foundations. CFC’s mission is to build stronger

communities by enhancing the philanthropic leadership of community foundations.

The CFC supports established and developing CFs in their endowment building and

donor services, grant making and community leadership, and as accountable stewards

of community assets. The CFCs also produce Vital Signs which is a data intensive

indicator system for communities (http://www.vitalsignscanada.ca/faq-e.html) and the

CFC supports fund organizations with their evidence based decision making

endeavours.

OpenConcept Consulting Inc., Mike Gifford, President,

http://openconcept.ca, mike@openconcept.ca, @mgifford, 613-3278537, Ottawa,

Ontario, Canada.

OpenConcept in business since 1999 has broad expertise using the Drupal toolkit in

developing dynamic, database-driven websites for a wide variety of government

programs and agencies, NGOs, trade unions, and socially progressive organizations in

Canada and the USA. OpenConcept also devotes a portion of its time and resources

toward environmental, educational, and social justice issues and community values

form an important base from which it manages its activities both as individuals and as a

team.

The West End Urban Health Alliance (WEUHA), Terrie Russell, Executive

Coordinator, Community Engagement Office, 416-949-2921,

westendurbanhealthalliance@gmail.com

The West End Urban Health Alliance (WEUHA) represents over 25 member

organizations - hospitals, community health centres, long term care, social service, and

12

palliative care agencies - that have been working in collaboration for over 20 years to

identify needs and integrate the delivery of services and high quality care to residents of

west Toronto.

Author of ZoneCone.ca and founding member of CivicAccess.ca, Stéphane

Guidoin, hoedic@mon-ile.net

ZoneCone is a grassroots initiative broadcasting road management open data (road

closures, accidents, etc.) to help citizen avoid road congestions. The target is to

demonstrate that Government Open Data can have a major impact on citizen decision

making in order to solve social and economic issues.

TeleCommunities Canada, Gareth Shearman, President,

shearman@victoria.tc.ca

TeleCommunities Canada aims to ensure that all Canadians are able to participate in

community-based communications and electronic information services by promoting

and supporting local community network initiatives also represents and promotes the

Canadian community networking movement at the national and international level.

Should you require any additional information please do not hesitate to communicate

with me directly.

Sincerely

Peggy Taillon