It's a very good question, and really, Mr. Chairman, I'm always very leery to compare jurisdictions. I think we have to extract some of the good principles and some of the ways they're moving forward, but each has their own issues.
For instance, in the U.S. it went through very fast; there were very tight timelines. A lot of data sets have been put forward. Some of it has been very successful. Some of it has been the subject of criticism because the data is too difficult for ordinary citizens to actually understand. There was an audit recently of the American system, saying it's not as successful as they thought it should have been.
In Australia they've laid out really wonderful fundamental principles in the task force recommendations, but so far it sits with the Australian government. So we haven't really seen the development in Australia; we've seen the seminal thought piece.
In the U.K., as I said in my opening remarks, the impetus behind it is very different from the American impetus. They're doing it because they've had serious financial difficulties, and they're really looking at it to have and to develop a very cost-efficient public service for their citizens. That's why in my opening remarks I basically said it has to be a made-in-Canada strategy.
We mustn't forget that in Canada, and at the federal level, we have quite a high level of disclosure that's being done by various institutions on their websites. It's very piecemeal. Everybody does their own thing.
The difference between open government and what's going on right now in Canada is everyone discloses their own information. It's usually in a static format, i.e. it's good for information, but you can't really access the underlying data. Open government is different. Open government basically fosters a central repository of data. This data is categorized in certain ways, is accessible from a central point of entry, and can be reused to develop different applications.
In the context of the stimulus spending, for instance, the difference in the U.S. is that the data sets are available, so people can actually go into that website, get the data, and develop their own analysis, which sometimes is different from the government's analysis. That's the difference. The way we publish information is mostly in static format, except for Natural Resources Canada, which has these open government concept databases.