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Le NPD et les Libéraux ont explicitement déclaré dans leurs plate-formes qu’ils rétablisseront le long formulaire du recensement. Le Bloc québécois mentionne l’annulation, mais n’est pas explicite sur le rétablissement. Les Verts ne font pas mention du recensement.

Recensement - Plate-formes électorales

NPD Libéral Bloc
5.15 Réinstaurer le questionnaire complet du recensement Un gouvernement ouvert p.78 1.4.5 L e Bloc Québécois fera montre de vigilance pour s’assurer que toutes les institutions indépendantes fédérales demeurent réellement à l’abri des pressions idéologiques ou partisanes du gouvernement.
Le NPD s’engage à réinstaurer le questionnaire complet du recensement Tous les paliers de gouvernement, la société civile, les chercheurs, les entreprises et le public doivent avoir accès à des statistiques et renseignements démographiques indépendants et fiables afin de prendre des décisions informées et de développer de saines politiques publiques pour le bien de tous les Canadiens. Un gouvernement libéral rétablirait donc le questionnaire détaillé obligatoire du recensement. Annulation mentionnée, mais pas la rétablissement
    3.1 L’indifférence à l’égard du fait français
    Annulation mentionnée, mais pas la rétablissement

The NDP and the Liberals have explicitly stated in their platform that they will reinstate the Long-Form Census.  The Bloc Québecois mentions the cancellation but is not explicit on reinstatement.  The Greens do not mention the Census.

Census - Election Platforms

NDP Liberals Bloc
5.15 Restoring the Long-Form Census Open Government p. 71 1.4.5 L e Bloc Québécois fera montre de vigilance pour s’assurer que toutes les institutions indépendantes fédérales demeurent réellement à l’abri des pressions idéologiques ou partisanes du gouvernement.
We will restore the long-form census. All levels of government, civil society, researchers, business and the public must have access to independent and reliable statistics and demographic information to make informed decisions and develop sound public policy to benefit all Canadians. Therefore, a Liberal government will restore the mandatory long form census. Cancelation mentioned but not reinstatement
    3.1 L’indifférence à l’égard du fait français
    Cancelation mentioned but not reinstatement

Our Open Data / Transparency Favourites

You can see how those in office have done and then decide if you want them back!

  1. How’d They Vote
  2. Vote.ca
  3. Citizen Factory
  4. Open Parliament
  5. Pundits Guide
  6. Politwitter

How to Vote tools:

Electoral Reform

I sure hope the Census will influence your vote!

Sunday morning musings;

Open Data should not just be raw data in open formats suitably discovered in catalogues, properly described with metadata and available under open licences, interoperable, released under the principle of open government and within government institutions with cultural leanings towards openness and transparency and the rapprochement of citizen and state.

Lets not forget that at the moment, open data is part of the evolution of democratic ideals in liberal minded well off countries.  Also, open data are also text, stories, atlases, scientific publications, narrative, journalism, etc.  With the popularity of app contests & hackathons, with so few ladies as part of the open data discourse, it seems, we are all not reflecting on who is framing the conversation and the politics behind our actions.

Open data is political and is more than numbers & apps, it is about a cultural change, is is evolutionary and it needs to be considered socially, culturally and politically and situated.

Wot!

I have been thinking about this for a while and this morning it all came together.

Friends have invited me to a passover dinner and the theme is Revolution.  I reflected on my favorite line – If you can’t dance you can’t join my revolution (Emma Goldman Living My Life ).  I was hoping that Living my Life was in the public domain, so I went looking for a reading of it in Librivox.

In Librivox I discovered this timely gem for the women in Egypt and Libya – The Hypocrisy of Puritanism. Women, as we have seen in Afghanistan, are told that their issues are secondary to the goals of freedom, and in fact, they should set their needs aside for the freedom of the nation.  What is the point of a revolution if not freedom for all, if women are not free, then in my mind the revolution has failed – evolution becomes more interesting perhaps for women?  Now, with these revolutions in full force women are being stripped searched, gang raped, electrocuted, cattle prodded,  undergoing virginity tests by the military, and being threatened with the label of prostitution.  Activism for men is political, for women, immoral.

Listening to the reading of this essay on Librivox, written in 1911 reminded me that text is also open data.  The words in this essay are as relevant today as they were in 1911 – we just need to change the geography:

The other important author I reflected upon is Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom.

While I am not as versed in his work as I should be, what I distill from afar, is the notion, that real freedom is actually really hard work, and unless we are continuously critical of what we do and think- very deeply, and are willing to deal with unpopular positions, pointing out the weaknesses in our own discourse and actions, and those of others, then we are not truly free.

Interestingly, for me, who is not Jewish but participating in a modified Jewish tradition, both Goldman and Fromm are the descendants of Jews or are Jewish.  Also, both Eastern Europeans who revolutionized our thinking from their new homes in the US.

This week I have been invited as a guest speaker at a Girl Geek Dinner in Ottawa, and some of these readings and listenings may make their way into that discussion.

Thank you Librivox and thank to Hugh who founded Librivox and is also a co-author on this blog!

I am speaking at a Girl Geek Dinner this week – YES!

Ottawa Girl Geek Dinner – Open Data panel.

The National Science Foundation describe Data as:

numbers, images, video or audio streams, software and software versioning information, algorithms, equations, animations, or models/simulations.

Data, according to the Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology, are also

facts, ideas, or discrete pieces of information, especially when in the form originally collected and unanalyzed.

The art of photograffeur JR could then be data originally collected and assembled in such a way that the viewer can analyze their meaning.  His data are large photographs of regular people in caricatured poses that are displayed on trains, buses, rooftops, elevations of favela homes, the Palestinian/Israeli wall, sunken roads, staircase and surface all over – pervasive art.  His photos include basic metadata, such as the name, age, address of of subjects.  The stories associated / the analysis / the abstract of these data are found in the streets and neighbourhoods where context is, these are posted, told by the subjects and the dwellers.

These are data in action which shape and are shaped by the faces and place from whence they come.  These are embedded in the social scape and in the imaginary of the cultural sphere, one of the many locals of social change.n  “It is not about changing the world, but the changing the way we look at it” JR.

The retrospective stories of 2010 or coming out the door and the Census story as a top issue for 2010 and the coming 2011.

new articles today:

29/12/2010

28/12/2010

I am sure there will be more!  These are the ones that poped on my desk this morning without me even having to look for them!

Wendy Watkins, From MADGIC at Carleton University and one of the founders of the Data Liberation Initiative has kindly shared her Statistical Society of Ottawa Presentation on the Cancellation of the Long-Form Census in Canada.

Lucky 13!

Canada – Open Data Cities & Province:

  1. OpenData BC (Citizen Led Catalog)
  2. G4 Open Data Framework; Municipal Open Government Framework
  3. City of Calgary
  4. City of Edmonton
  5. City of London, Citizens’ Group OpenData London
  6. City of Mississauga – Mississauga Data
  7. City of Montreal (Citizen Led – Montréal Ouvert)
  8. City of Nanaimo
  9. City of Ottawa, Citizens’ APP Group – OpenData Ottawa
  10. City of Toronto
  11. City of Windsor Open Data Catalog
  12. City of Vancouver
  13. District of North Vancouver GeoWeb

More info here – Resources page

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