Co-creating a more open government
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel to Washington DC to represent Ontario at the Open Government Partnership’s Subnational Government Pioneers Meeting.
Here in Ontario, we are one of 15 jurisdictions participating in the Open Government Partnership’s subnational pilot program. The OGP, as it’s referred to, is an international platform for governments that are tasked to work with the public and civil society to make their organizations more transparent, accountable and inclusive.
As part of this program, we are co-creating commitments that will advance Ontario’s goal of becoming the most open, transparent and digitally connected government in Canada. We’re specifically looking at four key themes:
- Transparency — publishing government-held information and data and improving access to information
- Accountability — tools and processes that hold the government accountable for its decisions
- Public participation — giving you more opportunities to weigh in on government decision-making in order to help us solve problems and create more efficient programs
- Technology and innovation — using innovative technology to improve transparency and accountability, increase public participation, and help deliver better programs and services
The meeting in Washington gave us the opportunity to collaborate, learn and share progress on our own plans with others working in this space. It was also a great opportunity to engage the public differently and to learn about how other governments are using digital tools to launch/host co-creation with the public.
For example: Madrid, Spain has launched an online public participatory process to decide on the renovation of the Plaza de España — one of the most emblematic Squares of the City of Madrid. Paris, France launched a consultation platform called Madame la Maire j’ai une idée dedicated to collecting input and ideas related to local policies, such as Paris’ strategy for climate and biodiversity.
What we’re up to here
We kicked off our journey in Ontario using Ontario.ca — our official website and a platform powered through internet-era technologies. We asked people to contribute their ideas on this platform — to tell us how we could use technology to become more open, transparent and accountable. We received 200+ ideas and we examined each one against a set of established foundational criteria:
- Relevancy: Did the idea fall under one of the four key areas? Was it applicable to our provincial government’s work and not duplicate work already completed?
- Feasibility: Was the idea feasible based on resources, costs, and effort required to implement it?
- Timely: Was the idea measureable and could it be implemented by December 31, 2017 (a requirement of the pilot program)?
While in Washington, we shared our early reflections, including how we connected with people, both inside and outside of government, to learn and evolve our engagement process.
Time to vote on ideas
After an initial scan, we’ve re-posted over 40 great ideas on Ontario.ca.
You can VOTE on these ideas, right now!
You can also get more information on how we are working with the public to co-create our commitments and work toward focused in-person sessions.
We’d love to hear from you as we go. If you have feedback or questions, you can reach us at opengov@ontario.ca
