Readout: Minister Murray participates in the Open Government Partnership Ministerial Steering Committee meeting

OTTAWA, ON, June 11, 2021 /CNW/ - The Honourable Joyce Murray, Minister of Digital Government, participated in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Ministerial Steering Committee meeting, hosted by current Steering Committee co-chairs, the Government of South Korea and lead civil society chair Maria Baron from Directorio Legislativo.

The committee focused discussions on leveraging the OGP platform to advance COVID-19 response recovery reforms, and how members can work towards a stronger global coalition of governments to advance open government in 2021.

Minister Murray emphasized Canada's interest in leveraging the OGP process to advance reforms stemming from the COVID-19 response and find innovative ways to apply the Partnership's overarching principles and values. Canada continues to focus on developing and implementing a meaningful 5th National Action Plan on Open Government and has adopted an inclusive approach by collaborating with the Multi-stakeholder on Open Government and other stakeholders to design the plan.

The Partnership was encouraged to advance ambitious reforms through the development of their own National Action Plans, as one of the main vehicles to achieve some of the OGP objectives in a visible and accountable way. Minister Murray also discussed how members could gradually integrate open government in everything they do and committed to championing open government in her role as Minister of Digital Government.

Minister Murray also confirmed Canada's commitment to advocate domestically and globally for the OGP platform, tools, and principles at global summits in 2021. Canada will help forge and mobilize a stronger political coalition for open government and democracy leading up to the OGP's 7^th Global Summit that will be held in December 2021, as well as at other key 2021 global summits, focusing on strengthening democracy.

Minister Murray reflected on the OGP's role as a connecting group internationally, for instance with members of the G20 and G7. The OGP's platform also allows for exchanging good practices on common areas of interest and the Minister encouraged the OGP to create more information networks to connect and learn from peers to strengthen open government reforms.

Minister Murray outlined how the Partnership has allowed Canada to commit and deliver on important reforms and stating that civil society partners have been key in driving these efforts forward. The Minister provided the example of Canada's Algorithmic Impact Assessment tool that was created as part of Canada's 4^th Open Government National Action Plan to help institutions better understand and mitigate risk associated with automated decision-making systems and the government's use of artificial intelligence.

As a proud member of the OGP, Minister Murray reiterated the importance of the OGP process in Canada's response and recovery from COVID-19, and the importance of embedding the principles and values of accountability, transparency, inclusion and openness in everything that we do as the government continues to find innovative ways to better serve Canadians and to build back better.

Quick Facts

• The OGP is a global initiative focusing on open government, which includes 78 national member nations and 76 local governments, along with hundreds of civil society organizations.
• Its objective is to secure commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance, in partnership with civil society and the private sector.
• The OGP Steering Committee is made up of representatives from 11 governments and 11 civil society members.

Associated Links

• Open Government Partnership website

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SOURCE Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat