I Believe in Open .ca

VisibleGovernment.ca, a non-partisan non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the planning, funding, and implementation of online tools for government transparency in Canada, has launched IBelieveinOpen.ca in order to organize citizens to push politicians to make five commitments. One of the commitments is to "Support reforms allowing free access to scientific and survey data gathered by government institutions."

Tracey Lauriault and Hugh McGuire explored four main factors that hamper access to government data in their article Data Access in Canada: CivicAccess.ca. In the same issue of the OSBR (February 2008 on Open Data), Jordan Hatcher provides examples of several open data projects including Science Commons.