This week, Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board of Canada, engaged in a discussion with industry leaders to seek input on how to develop a successful cloud computing strategy for the Government of Canada.

“Speaking at The Cloud Factory conference in Banff, the Minister outlined how a made-in-Canada approach to cloud computing will provide the tools and platforms needed to ensure Canada’s public service remains modern and high-performing.”

The Minister invited Canadian cloud industry leaders and provincial governments to engage in developing those policies.  This is much like the US government’s actions during development of the NIST set of cloud computing standards around 2008 and 2009.

The Canadian government has been fairly innovative when it comes to cloud computing, and should be able to get to a value point much faster than larger governments, such as the US.  The open dialog with the industry should also provide them with some helpful checkpoints as how to best leverage cloud computing on a continuing basis, and thus save more Canadian tax dollars.