VICTORIA – The Province of British Columbia has become the first province in Canada to release data from its provincial budget as open data announced Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government Margaret MacDiarmid.

The Ministry of Finance has released the 62 machine-readable datasets as part of Premier Christy Clark’s commitment to Open Government.

The datasets consist of the main budget document, the budget and fiscal plan, which lay out the Province’s three-year fiscal plan, and include the economic outlook, revenues, spending and tax measures, as well as forecasting risks and assumptions.

In addition, DataBC has published Supplements to the Estimates from this year’s budget as open data. The supplements show a detailed, ministry-by-ministry breakdown of proposed spending organized into standard categories, including government transfers, salaries, benefits and others.

By providing the data in machine-readable formats via DataBC and under the open government licence, the Province has made it easier for citizens, media, students and businesses to repurpose this valuable data and do their own analyses.

B.C. is the first provincial government to create a site like DataBC – www.data.gov.bc.ca – a catalogue of over 2,800 datasets. Over time, as new datasets become available, the site will grow.

This data is free, searchable and available for anyone to use and repurpose.