Community Solutions Portal

Author(s): Zoya Sodhi

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: Oct 2018

Smart cities are becoming an increasingly significant part of our world as our dependency and use of data and technology continues to rise.Getting to the Open Smart City, a new report from Future Cities Canada and OpenNorth, explores the concept of “openness” within a smart city context. The report analyses how the use of open smart technologies and approaches can help cities achieve more accessible and equitable outcomes, and provides recommendations to how our cities can integrate openness into our data policies.

Author(s): Tracey P. Lauriault (Carleton University), Rachel Bloom (OpenNorth) and Jean-Noé Landry (OpenNorth).

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: April 2018

The Open Smart Cities Guide is the end result of Open Smart Cities in Canada, a year long collaborative research project led by OpenNorth and funded by Natural Resources Canada's GeoConnections program.This guide provides a first ever definition for an Open Smart City and is intended as a starter kit for city stakeholders and decision makers. We expect that this living document will grow as we receive more input and learn about additional people, projects, practices and resources that contribute to Open Smart Cities. Please feel free to email info@opennorth.ca for more information or to provide your input.

Author(s): Tracey Lauriault Rachel Bloom Carly Livingstone Jean-Noé Landry

Publisher: SocArXiv Papers

Date updated: April 2018

This executive summary consolidates findings from a smart city environmental scan (E-Scan) and five case studies of smart city initiatives in Canada. The E-Scan entailed compiling and reviewing documents and definitions produced by smart city vendors, think tanks, associations, consulting firms, standards organizations, conferences, civil society organizations, including critical academic literature, government reports, marketing material, specifications and requirements documents. This research was motivated by a desire to identify international shapers of smart cities and to better understand what differentiates a smart city from an Open Smart City.

Author(s): Tracey P. Lauriault (Carleton University), Rachel Bloom (NordOuvert), et Jean-Noé Landry (NordOuvert)

Publisher: NordOuvert

Date updated: April 2018

Le Guide des villes intelligentes ouvertes présente la toute première définition d’une ville intelligente ouverte. Le guide est destiné à servir de trousse de départ pour les différents intervenants et décideurs des villes.

Author(s): OpenNorth and Open Data Charter

Publisher: OpenNorth and Open Data Charter

Date updated: Feb 2018

In collaboration with the Open Data Charter Secretariat, OpenNorth interviewed city managers, local civic leaders, and elected officials from four cities in Canada, the Province of Ontario, and three cities around the world (Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lviv, Ukraine; Durham, NC, USA) to identify barriers to adoption of open data and how support future needs. This report examines the important role the Open Data Charter network can play in connecting local governments around the world. Of the 52 governments that have adopted the Open Data Charter, 35 are local or subnational. This report concludes with six important findings about open data for local government including that : 1) There are strong incentives for cities to open up their data, and the Charter can help them to do this; 2) If “open by default” is applied to a city’s broader data management systems it can allow better internal data sharing, as well as improving access to information for citizens; 3) Opening data does not automatically create a data literate public​; 4) Achieving impact through open data requires interjurisdictional cooperation; 5) Policy and standard development is not keeping up with the pace of change; 6) Governments cannot be ‘open by default’ without open procurement.​

Author(s): OpenNorth

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Dec 2017

Developing and maintaining data standards is difficult, but a necessary step to unlock the potential for open data. To maximise the potential for widespread adoption, new standards initiatives must build upon the success and failure of existing standards. We document our own experiences with Open511, Popolo and Represent to share with the open data community.

Author(s): OpenNorth and Powered by Data

Publisher: OpenNorth and Powered by Data

Date updated: Nov 2017

In collaboration with Powered by Data, OpenNorth identified the opportunities for Canada to take a leadership role in the global open government movement and expand the Federal Government’s open government policy internationally. We position open government within the arena of foreign policy and as an alternative form of Canadian soft power. Based on the views of 13 Canadian open government experts, the following 6 themes provide guidance for Canada’s leadership role as a member of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee: Lead by Example; Active and Proactive Participation by Politicians and Civil Servants at all Levels; Clarify the Message; Go Beyond Compliance; Translate Open Government to Other Policy Areas; Reinforce the Relationship with Canadian Civil Society Organisations

Author(s): Paulina Marczak (Queen’s University, former OpenNorth research intern), Renée Sieber (McGill University, Geothink Lead) in September 2017

Publisher: Wiley Online Library

Date updated: Sept 2017

Legislatures are increasingly attuned to the rhetoric of open data for legislative content like bills and Hansards that dictates it be freely accessible, repurposable, machine-readable, standardized across subregions, and available without licensing restrictions. The call for legislative openness also derives from open data advocates, who seek to apply the rules of open data to unstructured information. We do not know whether legislative openness in Canada, at the provincial and territorial level, matches the rhetoric of open data. This study focused on commonly occurring categories of information on subnational legislative websites and examined their copyright, availability, archivability, information timeliness, and plain language descriptions.

Author(s): OpenNorth, Powered by Data, Data for Good

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Aug 2017

Reporting from the 2nd annual Data 4 Impact workshop held in Edmonton (AB) in the lead-up to the Canadian Open Data Summit 2017. The event brought together more than 80 regional and local not-for-profit organizations to raise awareness about the value of data sharing within the sector, provide frameworks and techniques to facilitate the use of data and share use cases of community data collaboratives. The workshop was co-organized and facilitated in collaboration with Data4Good and Powered by Data.

Author(s): Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia

Publisher: LSE Impact Blog

Date updated: July 2017

We are in the midst of a data revolution, one reliant on the capture, analysis, and visual representation of enlarged quantitative data, in increasingly digital formats. Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia argue that big data quantification is now not only a mechanism for extracting information but has become an idea with social and political power in its own right. The lack of critique of quantitative methods and their application contributes to the existing and potentially coercive power of digital information systems and their attendant methods, and enhances the potential for “collateral damage” associated with such applications.

Author(s): Erin Bryson (OpenNorth, Geothink), Jean-Noé Landry (OpenNorth), Prof Peter Johnson (University of Waterloo)

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Jan 2017

The international Open Data Charter (ODC) is a set of 6 principles that provide governments with a common foundation upon which to realise the full potential of open data. As Steward of the ODC, OpenNorth interviewed ten cities and four provinces in Canada to discuss how the ODC could align with sub-national open data policies and programs. The report is a collaboration with Geothink. The City of Edmonton was Canada’s first city to subsequently adopt the ODC and OpenNorth currently advises the Province of Ontario on the ODC’s implementation.

Author(s): Detroit Community Technology Project and Detroit Digital Justice Coalition

Publisher: Detroit Community Technology Project and Detroit Digital Justice Coalition

Date updated: Winter 2017

To understand what quitable open data practices could look like, Detroit Community Technology Project and Detroit Digital Justice Coalition asked a broad spectrum of Detroit residents to consider the potential benefits and harms of various data sets currently available on the City's Open Data Portal. From there, they assessed what actions can be taken by the City to maximize benefits and minimize harms, and investigated open data policies and tools in place in other cities that model their vision for data justice.

Author(s): UNDP and UN Global Pulse

Publisher: UNDP and UN Global Pulse

Date updated: December 2016

This guide provides step-by-step guidance for development practitioners to leverage new sources of data.

Author(s): Jean-Noé Landry (OpenNorth), Keira Webster (OpenNorth, Geothink), Bianca Wylie (OpenNorth), Pamela Robinson MCIP RPP (Urban Planning Ryerson University, Geothink Researcher)

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Dec 2016

Urban resilience is focused around issues that are constantly changing and evolving, such as migration patterns, employment trends, industrial development, and climate change. Launched at the OGP’s annual conference in Paris in 2016, OpenNorth’s discussion paper on the value added by open data in addressing urban resilience is based on the input of 35 global south and north experts. The discussion paper informs OpenNorth’s contribution in developing the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign toolkit.

Author(s): OpenNorth, Data for Good, New Brunswick Social Policy Research Network

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Aug 2016

Reporting from the 1st annual Data 4 Impact workshop held in Saint John (NB) in the lead-up to the Canadian Open Data Summit 2016. The event brought together more than 60 regional and local not-for-profit organizations to raise awareness about the value of data sharing within the sector, provide frameworks and techniques to facilitate the use of data and share use cases of community data collaboratives. The workshop was co-organized and facilitated in collaboration with Data4Good and the New Brunswick Social Policy Research Networks’ (NBSPRN).

Author(s): OpenNorth

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: April 2016

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) commissioned this study from OpenNorth in 2016, when Canada was facing an influx of Syrian refugees. The report focuses on how IRCC’s open data strategy and infrastructure could better meet the data and information needs of their stakeholders, with key recommendations on data quality, accessibility and standards. The study is based on a combined qualitative and qualitative data user needs identification methodology developed by OpenNorth

Author(s): Stéphane Guidoin (OpenNorth), Paulina Marczak (OpenNorth), Juan Pane (ILDA), James McKinney (OpenNorth)

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: Spring 2015

This OpenNorth study examines open data standards practices to determine where they produce barriers to accessibility in terms of discovering, accessing and using data. It recommends standards for more global adoption to enable information sharing. The findings were presented at the International Open Data Conference (IODC) in 2015 for which OpenNorth served as the conference reporting anchor for the standards stream.

Author(s): cippic and OpenNorth

Publisher: cippic

Date updated:

Smart city initiatives are often public-private partnerships, involving two or more public and private sector organizations working together towards a long-term goal. This FAQ discusses smart city technologies and considers how smart cities can be made “open.” It also describes how Canadian laws currently regulate smart city projects and technologies.

Author(s): Mary Pickering

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: Sept 2019

Collective Impact in Motion is a report by The Atmospheric Fund and Evergreen that describes the creation and work of Move the GTHA. It provides an example of what a collective impact group is, how it works, and its purpose as well as how it can be supported and funded.

Author(s): John Brodhead

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: July 2019

Intersection is a magazine profiling innovation and inspiration within cities. Each volume contains interviews with city-builders from different industries, profiles game changing ideas and exposes some of the newest initiatives occurring within Canadian cities.

Author(s): Lhazin Nedup

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: June 2019

This toolkit will guide you through your planning for 100In1Day Canada. Learn about 100In1Day as a global platform and the Canadian iniative and how to plan your intervention, and how to fund and promote it.

Author(s): John Brodhead

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: Feb 2019

Intersection is a magazine profiling innovation and inspiration within cities. Each volume contains interviews with city-builders from different industries, profiles game changing ideas and exposes some of the newest initiatives occurring within Canadian cities.

Author(s): Viet Vu, Creig Lamb, Asher Zafar

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: January 2019

This report provides the most current snapshot of Canada’s tech workers

Author(s): Aaron Wytze Wilson & Hebah Masood

Publisher: Code for Canada

Date updated: November 2018

The Civic Tech Playbookis adapts the strategies and lessons from Mark Headd's book "How to Talk to Civic Hackers: A Guide for Public Servants That Want to Engage and Collaborate with their Local Technology Community" to the Canadian context, complete with on-the-ground examples of how Canadian cities and civic tech communities are collaborating to deliver better outcomes for residents.

Author(s): Annalise Huynh, Nisa Malli

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: June 2018

A map of the digital literacy education and training landscape in Canada, including the existing gaps and potential opportunities to improve the development and supply of digital literacy skills

Author(s): Creig Lamb, Daniel Munro, Viet Vu

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: May 2018

A number of high-level recommendations designed to help policymakers, business leaders, educators, unions, and workers address the implications of automation for Ontario’s labour

Author(s): Clara MacCallum Fraser

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: May 2018

In Indigenous—Municipal Relations: Beyond Consultation, Clara MacCallum Fraser addresses the question of how municipalities begin to build relationships with Indigenous communities within whose territory they reside, and begin to move beyond token gestures and acknowledgements, towards deeply meaningful engagement.

Author(s): Neil Bradford and Michelle Baldwin

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: May 2018

In New Civic Leadership for Mid-Sized Cities: Pillar Nonprofit Network in London Neil Bradford and Michelle Baldwin explore the theory and practice of “new civic leadership” – an approach that values holistic community visions, multi-sectoral collaboration, and broad-based public engagement in shaping the city’s future.”

Author(s): Evergreen

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: April 2018

From late 2017 to early 2018, Future Cities Canada worked with partners across the country to host a series of roundtable conversations and meetings with municipalities and communities. These meetings gathered insights about the opportunities and challenges facing cities and regions in order to collectively build a vision for equitable, regenerative and prosperous 21st century cities. These conversations from each city are captured in this final document.

Author(s): Tea Hadziristic

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: April 2018

This literature review informs the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship (BII+E)’s research on the state of digital literacy in Canada, grounding it in existing research.

Author(s): Isha Nepal and Emily Kuzan

Publisher: Code for Canada

Date updated: August 2017

Civic tech communities are being established in cities around the world. They are a volunteer-run hub for innovation and networking between public servants, technology and design professionals, and civic activists. The community generally revolves around a weekly ‘hacknight’. This guide is meant to provide key tips to help you establish successful hacknights.

This toolkit is a work in progress created by Isha Nepal and Emily Kuzan on behalf of Code for Canada for the global civic tech community. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions throughout the documents for updates and improvements.

Author(s): Commission de l’éthique en science et en technologie,Gouvernement du Québec

Publisher: Commission de l’éthique en science et en technologie,Gouvernement du Québec

Date updated: aout 2017

Commission de l’éthique en science et en technologie,Gouvernement du Québec

Author(s): Creig Lamb, Matthew Lo

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: June 2017

What rapidly advancing technology means for Canadian regional economies, especially those identified as most susceptible to automation, such as Woodstock, Ont., and Quesnel, B.C.

Author(s): OpenNorth

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: April 2017

Conducted in 2017, this follow-up research project conducted for IRCC was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the digital capacity and needs of service provider organizations that serve newcomers in Canada and inform support recommendations for the sector. OpenNorth collected the input of 261 newcomer settlement organizations with a primary data collection tool and presented its findings in a French and English webinar.

Author(s): Shannon Mattern

Publisher: Places Journal

Date updated: February 2017

Author(s): N/A

Publisher: N/A

Date updated: N/A

A collective resource for digital stewardship, digital justice and community infrastructure. These resources emphasize self-governance, participatory learning, collaborative design and sustainability. As we learn and new people contribute, these resources will grow and change over time and we welcome contributions.

Author(s): Nicole Swerhun & Vanessa Av Ruskin

Publisher: Swerhun

Date updated: N/A

Learn more about how to design, deliver, and document credible, productive consultation processes with these principles, techniques, and tools.

Author(s): Multiple

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: N/A

The We Are Cities campaign, an initiative between Evergreen and McConnell Foundation’s Cities for People, engaged thousands of residents, asking them to imagine an agenda for the future of our cities. In the end, this Action Agenda was created to establish the five priority areas for action.

Author(s): Element AI and Nesta

Publisher: Element AI and Nesta

Date updated: March 2019

This white paper builds on a workshop that Element AI co-hosted with Nesta. The two day meeting brought together international experts on data governance, machine learning, privacy and property law, worker’s rights, and public policy to examine whether “data trusts” — a third-party stewardship model based on the common law trust — could be used to reinforce data governance and promote public trust.

Author(s): Nikki Gladstone, Jo Flatt, Julie Fader, Megan Hellstern

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: Feb 2019

It is increasingly clear that data and technology are becoming synonymous with city-building. This movement towards “smart cities” will continue to accelerate in the years to come, presenting a critical opportunity and challenge for leaders in communities of all sizes. This paper, written in partnership with Code for Canada, discusses the opportunities for data and technology in Canada’s mid-sized cities, with a particular focus on Ontario.

Author(s): Annalise Huynh, Heather Russek, Michelle Park

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: February 2019

As governments look to purchase innovations as well as purchase innovatively, what are the challenges and opportunities? Brookfield Institute explored innovation procurement and the potential for more experimentation.

Author(s): Angela Orasch

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: May 2018

In Digital Strategies and Smart Technologies in Ontario’s Mid-Sized Cities: An Emerging Role for Administrators Angela Orasch conducts a preliminary assessment of the current governance models of smart city initiatives in Ontario’s mid-sized cities.

Author(s): Amanda Smith and Geneva Starr

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: May 2018

In Smart Planning Our Future Cities: Supporting Healthy, Equitable and Sustainable Communities in the Digital Age Amanda Smith and Geneva Starr argue that developing a Smart City Master Plan can help municipalities identify needs, unite stakeholders and create a roadmap for using technology to achieve community goals.

Author(s): Helen Hambly

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: May 2018

In The Role of Southwestern Ontario Mid-Sized Cities in a Regional and Rural Broadband Partnership Helen Hambly, Jamie Lee, Geoff Hogan, Tammy McQueen, and Matt Rapke consider the role of mid-sized cities in the evolving architecture of regional broadband infrastructure in Southwestern Ontario and argue that mid-sized cities play an important role in the building and expansion of scalable high-speed internet.

Author(s): Professor David Wolfe

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated: April 2018

Creating Digital Opportunity is a national research partnership to identify strengths in current and emerging digital sectors, by examining the place of Canadian corporations, products and services in the global economy.

Author(s): Andrew Eland & Richard Pope

Publisher: Medium

Date updated: March 2018

Earlier this year, the London Chief Digital Officer and the Smart London board started a listening exercise to help develop the Smart London plan. The following is a response to their question of how to define a new deal for city data.

Author(s): Kurtis McBride

Publisher: CIGI

Date updated: March 2018

Author(s): Evgeny Morozov and Francesca Bria

Publisher: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

Date updated: Jan 2018

Following the celebration of the “creative city” (as described by Richard Florida), the “smart city” has become the new flavor of the month—and a brand. It makes clever use of resources, and it attracts money, corporate power, and private industries. As Evgeny Morozov and Francesca Bria point out, however, the problem is not merely the regulatory impulse of smart technologies. Coming from a political-economic rather than a purely technical perspective, the authors argue that the smart city can only be understood within the context of neoliberalism.

Author(s): Krassimira Paskaleva, James Evans, Christopher Martin,Trond Linjordet, Dujuan Yang, and Andrew Karvonen

Publisher: MDPI

Date updated: November 2017

The wisdom of ‘smart’ development increasingly shapes urban sustainability in Europe and beyond. Yet, the ‘smart city’ paradigm has been critiqued for favouring technological solutions and business interests over social inclusion and urban innovation. Despite the rhetoric of ‘citizen-centred approaches’ and ‘user-generated data’, the level of stakeholder engagement and public empowerment is still in question. It is unclear how smart city initiatives are developing common visions according to the principles of sustainable urban development. This paper examines how data governance in particular is framed in the new smart city agenda that is focused on sustainability. The challenges and opportunities of data governance in sustainability-driven smart city initiatives are articulated within a conceptual Framework on Sustainable Smart City Data Governance. Drawing on three cases from European countries and a stakeholder survey, the paper shows how governance of data can underpin urban smart and sustainable development solutions. The paper presents insights and lessons from this multi-case study, and discusses risks, challenges, and future research.

Author(s): Teresa Scassa

Publisher: The Star

Date updated: November 2017

Author(s): Privacy International

Publisher: Privacy International

Date updated: October 2017

The smart city market is booming. National and local governments all over the world expect their cities to become more efficient, more sustainable, cleaner and safer by integrating technology, increasing data generation and centralising data to provide better services. From large multinationals to small start-ups, companies want their slice of the multi-billion dollars per year pie of municipal budgets and long-term government contracts. But do smart cities even exist? And are our cities actually getting smarter? Or are smart cities a mere pretext to collect and process more data? This piece examines the reality of the smart city market beyond the ‘smart’ marketing term and existing smart city initiatives. We also consider the consequences and significant concerns emerging in terms of privacy and other fundamental human rights.

Author(s): Ray Tomalty

Publisher: Evergreen

Date updated: October 2017

Historically, cities have always been natural incubators for experimentation, change and progress. Today, our cities are on the brink of a new wave of innovation, driven by emerging practices related to governance and participation, a panoply of powerful new technologies, the availability of massive amounts of urban data, and novel sources and forms of capital investment. But the forces of inertia are also present in the form of established procedures, legacy mind-sets, and vested interests. To make progress, it is important that forward-looking people share a vision and language of change, take inspiration from successful models of change, and have a sense of where change can be achieved with the least resistance.This brief report takes a modest step towards addressing these needs by sketching out a theory of change that could be used by Future Cities Canada to guide the partners as they design and develop this promising new coalition.

Author(s): OpenNorth

Publisher: OpenNorth

Date updated: 2017

The Province of Saskatchewan’s Hub model is a strong example of a cross-jurisdictional, cross-sectoral, integrated service delivery model that is changing the way human services are delivered to the public. Through its highly flexible–but privacy-conscious–structure, Hubs in Saskatchewan are bringing together service providers into collaborative settings and building relationships. In this model, service providers collaborate, share data, and address common problems. Our investigation of the Hub is aimed at documenting its functioning and investigating perceptions surrounding it and the potential role of philanthropy. We would like to thank the following for their valuable input: Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), Community Safety Knowledge Alliance (CSKA), the Government of Saskatchewan (Ministry of Justice, Community Safety & Wellbeing), the Yorkton Hub and the Prince Albert Centre of Responsibility.

Author(s): First Nations Information Governance Centre

Publisher: First Nations Information Governance Centre

Date updated: May 2014

OCAP™ is the de facto standard for conducting research on First Nations, and has grown beyond research to include the governance of all First Nations information.

Author(s): Kate McBride

Publisher: Alberta First Nations Information Governance Centre

Date updated:

Author(s): Caitlin Cassie

Publisher: Brookfield Institute

Date updated:

A look at the Guelph Civic Accelerator pilot, a project that is breathing new life into traditional public procurement

Author(s): Jo Bates

Publisher: ci journal

Date updated: