Canada Design Report 2018-2020

Canada’s fourth action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... is the country’s first plan to be developed in partnership with a multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... (MSF). Structured under the pillars of inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More, participation and impact, it expands upon commitments from previous action plans and includes a strong focus on advancing genderOGP participating governments are bringing gender perspectives to popular policy areas, ensuring diversity in participatory processes, and specifically targeting gender gaps in policies to address gov... More equality. In moving forward, priority should be given to earmarking resources for implementing OGP commitments and for ensuring that the issues tackled resonate better with priorities identified by stakeholders. Future plans could consider adopting a results- or performance-based approach to plan design and implementation.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Canada joined OGP in 2011. Since then, Canada has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of its fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

The co-creation and early implementation of Canada’s fourth action plan coincides with a period during which the country assumed the role of lead government chair of the OGP Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... alongside the civil society chair, Nathaniel Heller.

The co-creation of this action plan involved the gathering of information using a host of on- and off-line platforms. In total, some 10,000 participants contributed approximately 5,000 comments, ideas, suggestions. The Multi-stakeholder Forum (MSF) was launched after the bulk of these inputs had been gathered and analysis of their content had commenced. After its inception, dialogue between civil society and government members of the MSF was ongoing, albeit to vary degrees, with the civil members involved in drafting and informing many aspects of the action plan.

The key lesson learned from forum’s work centres on the extent to which the combination of government budgetary cycles, departmental and agency schedules, and political will determine the art of the possible when it comes to implementing ambitious commitments within the OGP’s two-year program cycles. In the absence of both alignment between the latter considerations and budgetary allocations earmarked for OGP commitments, moving forward with ambitious ideas and suggestions offered up during the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... is exceedingly challenging.

The commitments set out in this fourth action plan reflect the three priorities the Government of Canada and the civil society chair set out for their respective co-chairship mandates: Inclusion, Participation, and Impact. Particularly notable in this regard, is the inclusion in the plan of a commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... focusing exclusively on Feminist and Inclusive dialogue, and its having been subject to a feminist and GBA+ review by external expert consultants prior to its publication.

The next action plan would benefit from being narrower in scope, and by having more issue-centred targeted commitments that bring open government and open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... to bear more directly on challenges, issues, and problems that resonate with Canadians’ daily lives and well-being.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM Recommendations