I think one of the key things to understand, at the federal level particularly, is that the term “proactive disclosure” in the federal government—and I know because I've been told this specifically by the Secretary of the Treasury Board—means what is mandatory disclosure, what you find on federal department websites, which includes travel expenses, hospitality, contracts, and so on. That's what the federal government understands as proactive disclosure. It doesn't understand it in the same context that I think this committee is looking at it--generally, in terms of what information we voluntarily disclose as institutions to the public. That's one distinction in terms of proactive disclosure.
Open government is different from proactive disclosure, in my view. It's a form of proactive disclosure, but open government means that you don't only disclose information, but you disclose it in a format that can be disaggregated, as data that can be reused, and people can use different technological applications to analyze this information.
The third concept that I would say is fundamental to open government is that it entails a collaboration with the citizens so that it's an exchange of information based on the data. The idea is to tap into the knowledge, creativity, and innovation of citizens to improve what the government is doing. So it's very much using the new technology such as social media and so on to interact with citizens to improve policies, programs, and service delivery. That's what I understand in terms of open government.