You are absolutely right. Open data is essential. The important part is to find out which data must be released and how they can be used. We must measure how they are used, what return on investment that can produce and how that can change our society.
For example, I can tell you that we are doing a study for the Quebec Treasury Board measuring the impact of open data and figuring out whether only society will use them, or whether the data will be open between departments. We have also done it for cities in Quebec, again at the Treasury Board's request. Open data will change the way we do things because they contain information that, if we use it intelligently, can lead to very disruptive technologies and software that are also very productive for society.