December 12, 2011

Canada's government is a member of the Open Government Partnership, a U.S.-led initiative to increase government openness and accountability to citizens, and this Thursday it will take a step toward that commitment by hosting its first ever Twitter town hall.

Officially dubbed the Open Government Consultation, the town hall will see Treasury Board Secretariat President Tony Clement - the man sometimes referred to as the Minister of Twitter, mostly because, well, he likes using Twitter - host what the government's website calls a "moderated tweet chat" on the topic of Open Government.

The English chat will take place between 5 and 5:45 p.m. EST on December 15th, following the hashtag #opengovchat, while the French-language version will run earlier, from 4 to 4:45 p.m., and will follow the hashtag #parlonsgouvert. The discussion will be hosted on the official Twitter accounts of the Treasury Board Secretariat, @TBS_Canada in English, and @SCT_Canada in French.

The town hall is actually a fulfillment of a requirement demanded by the Open Government Partnership, in which participating governments must present an action plan for improving access following public consultations. That means that Minister Clement's Twitter chat will provide the content for a report to be submitted in March, 2012; and THAT means that it is by no means certain that he will answer any questions other than those pertaining to the Open Government policy.

The announcement about the town hall followed very shortly on the heels of another press release, this one from government watchdog Democracy Watch on December 5, which lambasted the government for failing to hold the consultations it had committed to as a member of the Open Government Project. Two representatives from the Canadian government are reported to have attended meetings on the OGP in Brasilia, Brazil last Thursday.

As for Clement, he is clearly the go-to federal Conservative for all things Twitter. His feed, @TonyclementCPC, has almost 20,000 followers, and he has a knack for making big announcements (and small ones) via social media (something the Prime Minister's Office has not always been happy with).

But he's not the only Tory tweep. Here is a list of just some of the Twitter handles used by senior members of the government of Canada:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper: @pmharper
Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird: @JohnBairdOWN
Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney: @kenneyjason
Minister of Defence Peter MacKay: @MacKayCPC
Minister of the Environment Peter Kent: @ec_minister
Associate Director of Communications and Spokesman Andrew MacDougall @PMO_MacDougall

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Sources:

The Government of Canada

The Chronicle Herald

The Hamilton Spectator

CBC

Democracy Watch Press Release on Canada's Open Government Commitments