Report

THE DELEGATION: COMPOSITION AND OBJECTIVES

The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas attended the 5th Open Government Partnership (OGP) Global Summit held in Tbilisi, Georgia, from July 17 to 19, 2018. The Canadian parliamentary delegation was composed of Randy Boissonnault, MP, Vice-President of the ParlAmericas Open Parliament Network for North America.

This Summit provided an opportunity for leaders from OGP’s 75 participating countries and beyond to exchange ideas on how they are making their governments more transparent, accountable and responsive to citizens. Sessions focused on civic engagement, anti-corruption and public service delivery, among other topics related to government openness.

Randy Boissonnault, MP joined parliamentarians from across the world, including the following member States of ParlAmericas: Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay, who had also been invited to participate. The objective of ParlAmericas’ participation was to provide a parliamentary perspective to the Summit’s exchanges of ideas, showcase legislative openness efforts underway in the Americas and learn from peers from across the world as well as provide guidance to the Open Parliament e-Network which is coordinating global legislative openness efforts within the OGP framework. The ParlAmericas delegation also aimed to learn from Georgia’s experience in the development and implementation of Open Parliament Action Plans and in hosting this Summit to inform the planning of the 2019 Global Summit and its parliamentary track, which will take place in Ottawa, Canada.

JULY 16: MEEETING WITH CANADIAN DELEGATION AND DIPLOMATIC CORPS

On Monday, July 16, 2018, the Canadian Delegation to the OGP Global Summit held a briefing. It was attended by Randy Boissonnault, MP, the Hon. Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, Chris Cooter, Ambassador of Canada to Georgia (resident in Turkey), Kelly Murdock, Policy Advisor to the President of the Treasury Board of Canada, Francis Bilodeau, Assistant Deputy Minister for Digital Policy and Service at the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS), Mélanie Robert, Executive Director for Open Government and Services at TBS and Thiago Fernandes de Lima, Team Lead for the Canadian OGP Summit at TBS.

 At this meeting Chris Cooter, Ambassador of Canada to Georgia briefed the Canadian Delegation to the 5^th OGP Summit on Georgia’s history and its trade and political relations with Canada, including Canada’s support of Georgia’s intention to join NATO and the European Union. Representatives of the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada then explained the way in which the Summit would proceed. Randy Boissonnault, MP briefed the delegation on the OGP’s Legislative Engagement Policy and the discussions that have taken place in regard to developing an Open Parliament Action Plan in Canada. The delegation reviewed key messages to share throughout the Summit, focusing on Canada’s OGP Chairmanship values of inclusion, participation and impact.

JULY 17: MEETING WITH CANADIAN CIVIL SOCIETY REPRESENTATIVES

On Tuesday, July 17, 2018, Randy Boissonnault, MP joined the Canadian Delegation in a meeting to engage civil society representatives from Canada participating in the OGP Global Summit in a dialogue about Canada’s 4^th National Action Plan on Open Government and Canada’s leadership of the OGP Steering Committee. The meeting was attend by the following Canadian Officials: the Hon. Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, Chris Cooter, Ambassador of Canada to Georgia (resident in Turkey), Kelly Murdock, Policy Advisor to the President of Treasury Board, Francis Bilodeau, Assistant Deputy Minister for Digital Policy and Service at TBS, Mélanie Robert, Executive Director for Open Government and Services at TBS, Thiago Fernandes de Lima, Team Lead for the Canadian OGP Summit at TBS, Ashley Crossley, Open Government Partnership Multi-donor Trust Fund Coordinator at Global Affairs Canada, Fernando Perini, Senior Program Officer of Open Data 4 Development Program at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Katie Clancy, Program Management Officer for Open Data 4 Development Program at IDRC. It was also attended by the following civil society representatives: Mary Francoli, Professor at Carleton University, Robert Davidson, Principle Consultant at Veracify and Co-Chair of Canada’s Open Government Multi-Stakeholder Forum, Toby Mendel, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Democracy, Michael Karanicolas, President of the Right to Know Coalition and Canada OGP IRM Researcher and Lindsey Marchessault, Director for Data and Engagement at the Open Contracting Partnership.

Discussions at this meeting focused on the implementation of commitments from Canada’s 3^rd Action Plan on Open Government, commitments included in the current draft of Canada’s 4^th plan and new potential areas of engagement. This included the review of the Access to Information Act currently before Parliament and the increase of proactive disclosure of information, for example through the modernization of the tracking system for immigration files which could proactively share individuals’ file status, reducing the burden for ATIP requests. Furthermore, suggestions were provided to further engage the Privacy, Information and Official Language Commissioners to leverage their wealth of data and research in open government efforts, to better align open government commitments with the budget process to ensure funding for the implementation of commitments, to develop a beneficial ownership registry, to engage civil society experts in the implementation of open government commitments, to provide postal codes in an open data set, and to establish open government standards for all government departments.

JULY 17: PARLIAMENTARY MEETING OF THE OGP GLOBAL SUMMIT

On Tuesday July 17, 2018, parliamentarians from OGP participating countries and beyond gathered at the Parliament of Georgia to discuss the role of parliament within the Open Government Partnership, the advances that have been achieved so far, the challenges that remain and where parliaments should go from here.

High-Level Talks on Parliamentary Openness

The meeting began with high-level talks on parliamentary openness where Irakli Kobakhidze, Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia discussed the steps that the Parliament of Georgia has taken to improve its openness through the implementation of two Open Parliament Action Plans. Sanjay Pradhan, Chief Executive Officer of the OGP discussed how OGP seeks to support and enhance the work of parliaments by bringing citizens closer to government, empowering them to monitor and improve policies. He expressed his wish to deepen parliamentary engagement in OGP by working with parliaments to pass relevant legislation, apply openness principles to parliaments, and join forces with OGP members to stand up for democracy and civic space. Heidi Hautala, Vice-President of the European Parliament, spoke by video message and praised OGP as the biggest force for transformation in governance today and a key instrument for reform in many countries. The European Parliament is working to improve its practices and one of the recent steps they have taken is to create a legislative footprint of consultations that take place as part of the process to draft every piece of legislation. Blanca Ovelar, Senator of Paraguay and President of the ParlAmericas Open Parliament Network provided an overview of the status of legislative openness reforms in the Americas and the Caribbean and shared several new tools elaborated by ParlAmericas to support member parliaments in these efforts. Finally, Helen Clark, OGP Ambassador closed the session by discussing the reforms to the legislative process that have been undertaken in New Zealand across the years, including a mandatory requirement for all government proposed legislation to be scrutinized in committee and include public consultations.

Legislative Engagement Policy: Good Practices, Challenges and Ways Forward

The meeting continued with a session, moderated by Mukelani Dimba, OGP Steering Committee Co-Chair from Civil Society, focused on the legislative engagement policy approved by the OGP Steering Committee in September 2016. This policy marked a significant step for OGP in moving away from its focus on the executive branch to the other branches of government. Since then, more parliaments have joined the OGP platform and developed commitments through Open Parliament Action Plans. Randy Boissonnault, MP discussed the open parliament initiatives that have been underway in the Parliament of Canada and the benefits of continuing this work under the framework of the OGP and through an Open Parliament Action Plan. He announced that through the Canadian Section of ParlAmericas, a plan has been developed to work towards the institutionalization of a process for co-creating a Canadian Open Parliament Action Plan. Gordana Comic, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Serbia discussed their efforts, through OGP, to rebuild citizen trust in a post-conflict situation while populism is on the rise. Some of the initiatives they have undertaken include the establishment of a Parliamentary Budget Office, holding committee meetings in regions outside the capital and inviting local experts to participate, and building coalitions across party aisles to work on common issues like gender equality. Irina Pruidze, Chairperson of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance in the Parliament of Georgia, discussed lessons learned by their institution as it now works towards its 3^rd Open Parliament Action Plan. To improve on the process and make it more inclusive, they built on the participation of 15 CSOs in previous plans and held 7 meetings in 6 regions of the country to increase public participation from varied sectors of society. Maria Baron, Global Executive Director of Fundación Directorio Legislativo discussed the positive examples of Open Parliament Action Plans in Latin America, namely from Chile, Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Colombia. She also expressed that challenges remain, such as a need to formalize the process for civil society participation, improve monitoring and evaluation processes and work towards more transformative commitments. Philemon Kiplagat Sabule, County Assembly Speaker at Elgeyo Marakwet County Assembly in Kenya presented on legislation that has been adopted to require participation in law making and to ensure the equitable distribution of resources within the county.

Technologies and Innovations for Parliamentary Democracy

The discussions followed through this first round of lightning talks highlighting innovative techniques for enhancing parliamentary openness, transparency and citizen engagement, subsequently increasing the quality of policies and public trust in parliaments. Dr Rebecca Rumbul, Head of Research at mySociety presented an open sourced platform they have developed which provides a new way to display parliamentary information to make it easier for citizens to find out what is happening in parliament and what MPs are working on, in a format that is easily shareable through social media. Rima Kawas, Director of Governance and Collaborative Learning, International Republican Institute (IRI) discussed the support they are providing to parliaments to improve access to legislative documents by focusing on the user experience and leveraging social media platforms. Krzysztof Izdebski, Board Member and Policy Director of ePaństwo Foundation in Poland discussed the importance of parliamentary monitoring websites (such as Sejmometr) for both citizens and politicians, allowing users to get to know MPs and their issues of interest to boost parliamentary collaboration with civil society.

Transparent and Accountable parliaments 

This session, moderated by Laura Thornton, Senior Resident Director at the National Democratic Institute (NDI)-Georgia, discussed efforts to advance parliamentary codes of conduct and lobbyist registration. Tamar Chugoshvili, First Deputy Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia spoke on the importance of adopting ethical standards to build public trust, such as conflict of interest legislation, a mechanism for the declaration of interests, a code of ethics and restrictions for receiving gifts. Reinhold Lopatka, Chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee at the National Council of the Republic of Austria mentioned that as members of the European Union, Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) evaluation reports provide recommendations that has helped the Parliament of Austria improved its ethics system. This system is governed through various laws and includes the declaration of assets and interests and an oversight mechanism where sanctions mostly take place in the form of negative public opinion. Paulina Nuñez, President of the Bicameral Group on Transparency of the Congress of Chile discussed their Integrity System, which includes a code of conduct, a parliamentary committee to monitor and sanction breeches, and legislation to regulate lobbying, which were promoted through several Open Parliament Action Plans. Tamar Nedzar, Senior Counsel of the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States presented on the work of the House Ethics Committee which serves to provide confidential advice and education to parliamentarians and investigates allegations of wrong doing related to gifts and travel, conflicts of interest, financial disclosure, post-employment restrictions and functions that can be undertaken by parliamentarians’ official offices. Jacopo Leone, Democratic Governance Officer at the Office for Democracy and Human Rights at the Organization of Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE) provided a comparative overview of ethics regulations that have been adopted in 28 parliaments of the OSCE. One of the challenges that remains is related to the lack of enforcement of codes of conduct and relevant minimum level of sanctions to ensure its respect. A strong legislative framework also needs to be in place on which the code can be based; he suggested that a code should function as an educational framework rather than as a tool for punishment.

Technologies and innovations for Parliamentary Democracy

This second round of lightning talks continued with additional presentations of innovative techniques for enhancing parliamentary openness, transparency and citizen engagement, subsequently increasing quality of policies and public trust in parliaments. Liia Hanni, Senior Expert at the E-Governance Academy in Estonia and former member of parliament presented efforts undertaken in Estonia to digitize governance, which includes e-voting in elections, e-identities (identification documents available online), and e-petitions. Nora Dempsay, Senior Adviser for Innovation, and Bridget Roddy, Project Coordinator at the State Department of the United States presented the Virtual Student Federal Service, the largest internship program in the world where students work alongside public servants across various government departments using an open sourced online platform that can be replicated by others. Giorgi Topuria, Senior Analyst at Transparency International Georgia discussed the challenges of our reduced attention span in this new digital age and the importance of using simple language in efforts to engage citizens, which TI-Georgia has done in its parliamentary monitoring website and SMS follow-up.

Next Steps with the Open Parliament e-Network

This closing session launched the Open Parliament e-Network, formed by Directorio Legislativo, the Latin American Legislative Transparency Network, the National Democratic Institute, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ParlAmericas and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to enhance collaboration to support the growing number of opportunities to strengthen the legislative openness movement. The Parliament of Canada is represented in this initiative through ParlAmericas. Scott Hubli, Director of Governance Programmes at National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Devin O’Shaughnessy, Director of Programmes at Westminster Foundation for Democracy reflected on all the efforts that have taken place across the world since the adoption of the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness which started this movement five years ago. They highlighted the work achieved in Latin America, with the support of the ParlAmericas Open Parliament Network.

JULY 18: 5^TH OGP GLOBAL SUMMIT – DAY ONE

Summit Inauguration

The Summit began with welcome remarks from Sanjay Pradhan, OGP Chief Executive Officer who described the work being achieved through this partnership and an inclusive alternative to populism and urged for stronger coalitions with parliamentarians, media and private sector within the open government sphere. The inauguration continued with Giorgi Margvelashvili, President of Georgia, who discussed the work being done within his country across all branches and all levels of government, including the legislature and judiciary, to build an Open State. An opening panel with Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka, Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev, Prime Minister of Kyrgyz Republic, Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of Serbia, Giorgi Kldiashvili, Founder Institute for Development of Freedom of Information Georgia and OGP Steering Committee Member and Helen Clark, OGP Ambassador, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Former Administrator of UNDP presented the most recent developments to open and strengthen public institutions in the countries represented, including the transfer of appointment powers to parliament in Sri Lanka, work towards a first National Action Plan in the Kyrgz Republic and a law on e-government in Serbia.

A second panel with Irakli Kobakhidze, Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Kakha Kaladze, Mayor of Tbilisi, Mari Kiviniemi, Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD, Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International, Karol Ilagan, Senior Reporter at the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism addressed the use of open government to build integrity and trust. During the session the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda announced that his government is seeking to join the partnership.

Ecuador, the Kyrgyz Republic, Morocco, Portugal and Senegal were welcomed as new OGP participating countries and Basque Country, Spain; Iași, Romania; Kaduna State, Nigeria; Nariño, Colombia; South Cotabato, Philippines were welcomed as new local members.

Open and Digital Government

This session, moderated by Daniely Votta, Urban Governance Manager at the World Resources Institute in Brazil discussed the use of technology to not only enhance government transparency but also create opportunities for citizens to participate in public decision-making. The Hon. Scott Brison, President of Treasury Board, discussed the new digital tools adopted by the Government of Canada to make government more inclusive, participative and impactful. Janek Mäggi, Minister of Public Administration of Estonia discussed the advances they have undertaken in relation to online voting and digital IDs. Ravit Korn Zilberfarb, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Government ICT Authority discussed their efforts to change the culture within the public service through digital government initiatives. Jose Clastornik, Chief Executive of the Agency for e-Government and Information Society in the Office of the President of Uruguay closed the session by presenting their efforts to digitize public services for citizens, the private sector and to facilitate the exchange of information between government departments.

OGP and Parliamentary Oversight: Working with Parliaments to Strengthen Oversight of Service Delivery and National Action Plans

This session, moderated by Scott Hubli, Director of Governance at National Democratic Institute, discussed the important connection between open government reforms and the strengthening of parliaments’ oversight capabilities. Tamar Chigoshvili, Member of Parliament of Georgia discussed how the Parliamentary Council on Governance in Georgia is contributing to the Government’s Open Government National Action Plan in terms of building commitments and overseeing their implementation. Gigi Bregadze, Democratic Governance Team Leader at UNDP-Georgia discussed the support provided by UNDP to the Parliament of Georgia in this process. Randy Boissonnault, Member of Parliament of Canada and Vice-President of the ParlAmericas Open Parliament Network for North America discussed the challenges related to the establishment a co-creation model to develop Open Parliament Action Plans and to undertaking such a cultural change both in parliament and in civil society. Mukelani Dimba, Head of Development at the International School for Transparency and OGP Steering Committee Co-Chair expressed his view that there is too much reliance on the Independent Review Mechanism to ensure oversight of National Action Plans and that parliaments could contribute more effectively to this role. Femke Lee-Brouwer, Chief Technical Advisor for Parliament at UNDP-Moldova discussed the challenges with creating new capacity to manage large projects such as open parliament reforms within parliament. The discussion that followed focused on a need to strengthen parliaments’ oversight of open government reforms and bring awareness and support of these reforms to parliament to ensure their sustainability, while ensuring that more oversight does not reduce the ambition of commitments adopted by the Executive. Open government reforms themselves can also be used to strengthen parliament’s capacity for oversight by removing internal barriers for parliament to access information.

JULY 18: BILATERAL MEETING WITH IRINA PRUIDZE, MP GEORGIA AND CHAIRPERSON OF THE PERMANENT PARLIAMENTARY COUNCIL ON OPEN GOVERNANCE

Randy Boissonnault, MP met with Irina Pruidze, MP from Georgia and Chairperson of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance to discuss the Georgian Parliament’s experience in co-creating Open Parliament Action Plans with civil society. The Georgian Parliament established a Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open Governance which is the organ responsible for developing and implementing Open Parliament Action Plans. It currently is not supported by institutional staff and relies on support provided by MP staff, and UNDP-Georgia. This has been a great challenge and they are working to assign institutional support for these efforts. They are currently developing their 3^rd plan and have built support from both within parliament and civil society through the success of past plans. They are now focusing on improving their relationship with citizens outside of the capital by expanding co-creation mechanisms, both in person and online, to reach more citizens and various stakeholders.

JULY 18: OPEN PARLIAMENT E-NETWORK (OPeN) MEETING

This meeting brought together representatives of OPeN Partner Organizations: Emilie Lemieux of  ParlAmericas, Scott Hubli and Victoria Welborn of the National Democratic Institute, Devin O’Shaunessy, Julia Keutgen and Victoria Hasson of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Angel Ramirez of the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency, Maria Baron of Directorio Legislativo, Jacopo Leone and Tiina Kukkamaa-Bah of ODHIR, and Lotte Geunis of the OGP Support Unit, with members of its Parliamentary Leadership Council: Randy Boissonnault, MP, Irina Pruidze, MP (Georgia), Blanca Ovelar, Senator (Paraguay), Paulina Núñez, MP (Chile), and representatives from the Congress of Chile, Luis Rojas, Prosecretary and Alfonso de Urresti, Senator. OPeN was launched in January 2018 and partners met for the first time in-person on this occasion. Discussions focused on how OPeN can coordinate to better support parliamentarians in their legislative openness efforts and to further institutionalize the role of parliaments within OGP. One of the main challenges discussed is that while national-level efforts are well recognized in the international open parliament community, they have not modified citizens’ perceptions at home. For this reason, OPeN will coordinate efforts to improve the communication of achievements focused on the impacts of these reforms. To ensure parliaments remain at the forefront of OGP, it was suggested that where possible, a parliamentarian could take the second national seat prescribe to his or her country on the OGP Steering Committee. One further challenge that remains is how to integrate Open Parliament Action Plans as annexes to the government’s National Action Plan. This procedure is not clear and depends on the willingness of the Executive Branch. OPeN will explore this question and work with the OGP Support Unit to report on best practices to improve this process.

JULY 19: 5^TH OGP GLOBAL SUMMIT – DAY TWO CLOSING

The Closing of the Summit started with reflections from several sessions, including recognition of efforts taken within OGP to feature women experts in all sessions, and a call to reflect on how to consider a gender perspective in all open government reforms. As the Government of Georgia and Mukelani Dimba completed their term as lead OGP Co-Chairs, the Government of Canada represented by the Hon. Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board of Canada and Nathaniel Hellier, Executive Vice President of Integrated Strategies at Results for Development are taking over this role. They will be supported by the Government of Argentina represented by Andrés Ibarra, Minister of Modernization and Robin Hodess of the B Team representing civil society. A session focusing on youth engagement in OGP was selected as the most successful of the Summit, and a representative was invited to join the closing panel where she advocated for OGP to further formalize this engagement and create more spaces for youth to participate as Summit panelists. The Summit closed with an announcement by the Hon. Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board of Canada that the 6^th OGP Global Summit would take place in Ottawa, Canada.

CONCLUSION

The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas is thankful for having been invited to participate in the ParlAmericas international delegation for such an important global conference. The Canadian Parliament has taken significant steps to modernize its practices and open its chambers to citizens and now has an opportunity to structure these efforts within the framework of the OGP by co-creating an Open Parliament Action Plan with civil society. Through this process, it would develop a constant dialogue with civil society and create a feedback loop to better understand how effective our initiatives to open parliament have been for various stakeholders and work towards strengthening the inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups, such as women, Indigenous Peoples, the LGBTQ2 community, and newcomers in the legislative decision-making process. The Parliament would also join an international community of like-minded politicians, public servants, civil society and private sector representatives, who are dedicated and committed to transforming the way all branches of government work to better serve citizens and be more responsive to our realities. It could show global leadership and share its experiences with others, as well as learn from their undertakings, moving us closer to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 to build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. Finally, the Parliament’s engagement in this initiative would bring more awareness of Open Government reforms and their impacts to both parliament and citizens, to strengthen support for Canada’s engagement in OGP and to ensure the sustainability of these ambitious reforms. This is particularly timely as Canada takes over as Lead Government Co-Chair of the OGP Steering Committee and will host the next OGP Global Summit in 2019.

The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas would like to express gratitude to the International Secretariat of ParlAmericas for the support provided to the Canadian delegate in preparation for and throughout the time in Tblisi.  The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas would further like to express its compliments to the Parliament of Georgia for hosting the official Parliament Day on the occasion of this 5^th OGP Global Summit, as well as to the organizers from the Government of Georgia for the Summit itself. Finally, the Canadian Section of ParlAmericas would like to express its gratitude to the Hon. Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board of Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat for its leadership of the Open Government agenda nationally and international through OGP, and coordinating the participation of the Canadian Delegation to this Summit with the support of the Embassy of Canada to Georgia.

Respectfully submitted,

Hon. Robert Nault, P.C., M.P.
Chair
Canadian Section of ParlAmericas