Opening the Government of Canada

Opening the Government of Canada presents a compelling case for the importance of a more open model of governance in the digital age but a model that also continues to uphold democratic principles at the heart of the Westminster system. Drawing on interviews with public officials and extensive analysis of government documents and social media accounts, Clarke details the untold story of the Canadian federal bureaucracys efforts to adapt to new digital pressures from the mid-2000s onward. This book argues that the bureaucracys tradition of closed government, fuelled by todays antagonistic political communications culture, is at odds with evolving citizen expectations and new digital policy tools, including social media, crowdsourcing, and open data. Striking a balance between reform and tradition, Opening the Government of Canada concludes with a series of pragmatic recommendations that lay out a roadmap for building a democratically robust, digital-era federal government.