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
1

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.
2

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.
3

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
4

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
5

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
6

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
7

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/
8

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
9

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.
10

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
11

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
12