Open Data

The Open Government Action Plan was developed to direct and coordinate federal Open Government activities, and contains 12 commitments related to Open Data, Open Information and Open Dialogue. It is aligned with what we heard during consultations held between December 6, 2011 and January 16, 2012, and is part of Canada's participation in the Open Government Partnership.

One of the three streams of Open Government is Open Data. Open Data makes government data available in machine-readable formats for citizens, private sector organizations and not-for-profit organizations to reuse in innovative ways. It's about letting Canadians explore our data sets to find information that is of value to them.

The Open Data portal now has more than 272,000 data sets from 20 participating organizations, up from 10 at the launch of the portal.

Why Open Data?

Open Data initiatives foster innovation, job creation and improved community services for Canadians, and help create new business or research opportunities. They also allow citizens to access data to learn about and participate in the Government.

How do we achieve this?

The Government of Canada launched the Open Data Portal:

• to provide single-window access to federal datasets; and
• to make data available for commercial or research purposes to benefit all Canadians.