New Westminster – The City of New Westminster is proud to announce that New Westminster has been recognized as the sixth most “open city” in Canada on the list of Top 20 Open Cities by Public Sector Digest, up six spots from last year. In the category of cities with a population of 50,000 to 100,000, New Westminster is ranked number one in Canada. In 2015, the City undertook an open data policy consistent with its Intelligent City initiative and launched an open data website with the goal of making municipal information easily accessible and encouraging citizenship engagement.

“The main objective of our Intelligent City initiative is to create a better connected community and foster a knowledge economy in New Westminster,” said City of New Westminster Chief Information Officer Alvin Chok. “Through the open data policy, we hope to promote data transparency to the public, as well as encourage people to look at innovative ways to help solve problems that may benefit all citizens.”

Since the City’s open data website launched in 2015, the site currently houses 12 categories of data and over 165 data sets available for easy public viewing in various downloadable formats.

“We’re always looking for ways to be as transparent as possible in order to maintain openness and to put information into the public’s hands,” said Mayor Jonathan Coté. “I’m proud of our open data platform and encourage everyone to check in regularly for new, updated datasets.”

To date, data sets on our open data website have more than doubled since last year with staff continuing to add to the site regularly. The site can be accessed at opendata.newwestcity.ca

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Contact:

Alvin Chok
City of New Westminster Chief Information Officer
604-527-4553 or