I wrote the latter part of this post, after the recommendations, specifically to answer the question Evgeny posed, since I thought others might well share his interest — and because there was some question about whether I’d been paid. (I was not.)

I do not know what the line item is for “open government” in Canada’s budget — nor even if there is such a line item – although it makes sense that some funds would be allotted for related activities. It did not come up during the meeting I was in. I would expect some digging here might help: http://www.budget.gc.ca/2012/plan/toc-tdm-eng.html

I attended the same dinner in Brasilia that members of Canadian civil society in Brasilia attended. It is not clear to me why going to meet government officials or civil society representatives for dinner is on its face unethical; indeed, that was, more or less, what constituted most of my experience at the OGP conference.

I disclosed my participation on this panel months ago; the purpose of this post was simply to to clarify what I recommended during the meeting in February, since Morozov was interested and raised the issue publicly. There is no malicious or untoward intent behind the timing of this post. As I wrote above, no journalism professor I have consulted has, to date, judged my actions here to be in error.