Blog

On February 13 the Honourable Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, spoke at Third Tuesday Ottawa, a monthly gathering of innovators with an aim to “explore new developments in social media and online community building”. Minister Clement, known in Canadian social media circles for being one of the prolific House of Commons Twitter users, spoke about the government’s new Web 2.0 guidelines, open government, and using crowdsourcing to develop public policy.

Based on the success of the government’s first foray into crowdsourcing with Industry Canada’s “Digital Economy Strategy” project (proudly developed and led by Ascentum), Minister Clement shared that the government would like to see more government policy sourced from the crowds. He then challenged those in the audience to suggest public policy issues that could be crowdsourced.

We’d like to take Minister Clement up on his offer, and humbly suggest five topics:

1. How can the government help celebrate the 150^th Anniversary of Canadian Confederation in 2017 (Heritage Canada)
2. Which e-services should the federal government be providing, that aren’t yet available? (Service Canada)
3. How can the government increase productivity? (Industry Canada, Human Resources & Skills Development Canada)
4.  How can we improve trade, security and cultural ties with our largest trade partner, the US? (Public Safety, Industry, Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Citizenship)
5. How can the federal government make better use of diasporas, including Canadians abroad and those with foreign links in Canada, to improve trade, economic and cultural links? (Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Citizenship)

Here’s hoping Minister Clement is listening!

-Stephan Telka-