Open Gov Partnership Brasilia meeting - who should represent Canadian civil society?

I don't know the answer to this, so I'm blogging my lack of knowledge in the hopes of feedback.  I had a brief discussion with Chris Moore about how to proceed.

In short, who should represent Canadian civil society at OGP Brasilia in April?

Canada is part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), and is developing its committments, with the country action plan indicated on the site as coming in March 2012 (the deadline for action plans is April 9, 2012).

http://www.opengovpartnership.org/countries/canada

The Canadian consultation about open government ends January 16, 2012.

The big OGP conference is in April 2012 in Brasilia.  42 new member countries will formally present their Action Plans at this meeting, with updates from the 8 founding members.

This Annual Conference will be April 16-18.  The page states

At this high-level OGP annual meeting, governments, civil society and the private sector will come together as new OGP participant countries deliver their final OGP action plans and formally endorse the OGP declaration of principles. The event will feature a series of high-level panels, small group sessions and an open government innovation exhibition focused on sharing best practices and continuing to drive innovation... 

In terms of civil society participation, the OGP announced that they could fund 1 civil society representative from each country, as well as offering 50-70 registration slots for self-funded civil society attendance.

OGP has resources to support the participation of up to one civil society representative from each of the 50 OGP participating countries. In addition, we have space for around 50-70 self-financed regional/international civil society representatives to participate.

The deadline to apply is February 6, 2012.  The OGP website has information on how to apply.

The OGP has said it wants local civil society to sort out who should go.

Wherever possible, OGP is seeking to have local civil society in each OGP country select their representative to the April 2012 conference themselves, rather than OGP picking the candidate. OGP will privilege applications from civil society representatives that can demonstrate an established track record of active engagement in the open government field, and the endorsement of fellow local civil society colleagues to attend the April 2012 [meeting]. 

In instances where local civil society cannot come to agreement on a common delegate to attend the April 2012 meeting, the OGP Support Unit will do its best to recommend the candidate from that country whose application demonstrates the most experience and strongest civil society networks in the open government field. 

I don't know of any national civil society organisations in Canada that speak about open government or e-government issues (there doesn't appear to be e.g. an Electronic Frontier Foundation equivalent - there is an Electronic Frontier Canada but its "Current Issues" are from 2004).

We are however rich in regional organisations, such as Montréal Ouvert and Open Data Ottawa.

So we as open government supporters have two challenges: who should go as the funded civil society representative, and who (if anyone) should represent Canada on a self-funded basis (along with possible fundraising).

As I stated at the outset, I don't know the answer to these questions.  I look forward to your ideas and feedback.

Twitter:

• @opengovpart - Open Government Partnership
• @_i_am_chris - Chris J Moore
• #OGP - general Open Government Partnership discussions (but noisy, many other topics on #OGP)
• #OGPBrasilia2012 - specifically about the upcoming conference
• I have been using #opengovca for Canadian-specific open government
• The Canadian Twitter consultation used #opengovchat and #parlonsgouvert

Previously:
December 18, 2011  open gov video - Minister Clement speaks at Public Sector Engage - Nov 22, 2011
December 15, 2011  Canadian #opengovchat - archives & hackfests