A few weeks after tabling its accountability act, the provincial government is making more information available to Ontarians in its push for greater transparency.

Minister of Government Services John Milloy announced Monday the province is launching an online inventory of government data that people can vote on to decide which data the government should make public.

Data - such as traffic, student achievement and healthcare wait times, polls and other information - could be put online and people would vote on what information they want to see released first.

Milloy said more than 1,000 data set titles and descriptions are included in the inventory, which will continue to grow as more data sets are identified.

Data sets protect privacy, security and confidentiality, and can be published in an accessible format that can be easily analyzed.

Transparency is a key reason for the open data move but so is economic growth, since technical and other information can be used for research and to boost the economy.

Milloy said the global business consulting firm McKinsey & Co. estimates that open data can help generate more than $3 trillion a year in key sectors of the world economy.

“Open data has the power to spur innovative ideas that will encourage economic growth and help people in their everyday lives," Milloy said in making the announcement at the MaRS technology hub near the legislature. "Our open government initiative is about increasing public input into government decision-making, including how we open up Ontario’s data.”

Open data is the idea that certain information should be freely available to everyone to use and republish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other controls.

Since becoming Premier 14 months ago, Kathleen Wynne has tried to distance her government from the scandal-plagued administration of her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty. She has promised more open government and less secrecy and has asked Milloy to lead the way on that effort.

Milloy launched a review of open government late last year a few months after the minority Liberals appointed a deputy minister responsible for open government in Ontario.

The Open by Default report on government transparency, released a few weeks ago, recommends such measures as enhancing freedom-of-information laws by routinely releasing more information on the operation and costs of government. It also recommends more openness in policy-making and government decisions and making things such as government funded polls publicly available.

In early March, Milloy tabled Bill 179, the Public Sector and MPP Accountability and Transparency Act, which puts politicians' expenses online, imposes stiffer rules on lobbyists, gives the provincial Ombudsman more powers and moves on other fronts to open up government.

Bill 179 may not be passed in time if there's a spring election, but open government is likely an issue that would come up in any campaign.

“I came into this office just over a year ago saying that I was going to do government differently, that we were going to open up and be more transparent," Wynne said when her government unveiled Bill 179.

"That is what we’re doing."

Milloy says province set to put reams of info online

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