Expansion of Open Data Portal

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 2, 2012) - The Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for FedNor, today announced the addition of more than 6,000 data sets to the Open Data Portal at www.data.gc.ca.

"These new additions are high-value data sets that Canadians can use in innovative ways to create economic opportunities," said Minister Clement. "I encourage current and potential Canadian entrepreneurs to take a look and determine how they could benefit their businesses."

These additional data sets come from six federal government organizations, and include comprehensive socio-economic statistical data from Statistics Canada, national broadband coverage data from Industry Canada, reports and charts on water and air quality from Environment Canada, and data sets from the Treasury Board Secretariat, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and Health Canada.

The Open Data Portal now has more than 271,000 data sets from 17 participating organizations. It is a one-stop shop for federal government data that can be downloaded free of charge by Canadian citizens, researchers, voluntary organizations and private sector businesses. Application developers can reuse and mashup this data for commercial purposes, research or community services for the benefit of all Canadians.

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Backgrounder

On February 1, 2012, the Government of Canada expanded the Open Data Portal pilot to include over 6,000 new data sets from 6 government institutions.

Open Data is about offering government data in more useful and machine readable formats to enable citizens, the private sector and non-government organizations to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways.

The new data sets available through this portal include:

Environment Canada

• Reports and charts on water and air quality, protected habitat indicators, and municipal water and wastewater surveys

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada

• International trade data for poultry products

Health

• Data for licensed natural health products and authorization dates for all drugs dating back to 1994 that have received a notice of compliance

Industry Canada

• National broadband coverage data and the technical and administrative frequency list that contains data on radio system frequencies.

Statistics Canada

• Data from the Canadian Socio-economic Information Management
  System database

Treasury Board Secretariat

• Main Estimates tables by Statutory Forecast and Standard Object, which provide information on the type of expenditures planned by departments, agencies and Crown corporations

The Open Data Portal is available at www.data.gc.ca. The pilot phase is taking place over a one-year period, during which the Government will continue to increase the number of data sets available to users and the number of participating organizations.

The Open Data Portal is part of the Government of Canada's efforts to drive innovation and economic opportunities for all Canadians.