Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm very impressed with our panel of witnesses here this morning.
We started this initiative a few weeks ago, and it was recognizing that, as a federal government, we've signed a G-8 open data charter. There's a mandate now to develop a road map for the federal government, and I appreciate the different perspectives.
I'd like to get some input from all four of our witnesses this morning on this notion of the government as a publisher of data, very much a one-way flow of information from government to citizens versus the notion of the federal government being more of a facilitator or creating the public square where people can publish certain data, a way to engage them. Many examples come to mind where the government can't create the data. If you think of species at risk, for example, where there are eyes and ears all over the country, and people might be able to spot a rare bird and they can provide that information.
One of the challenges with providing that public square is how do you confirm whether the data is good or do you need to confirm? Some people could be there, not so much to publish data, but they have a certain point of view they try to advocate and they could hijack that public square.
Can each of you in turn, in the order that everybody spoke, talk about that 1.0 version of open data versus a 2.0 of more of an engaged version of public data?