Thank goodness I follow @daeaves on Twitter else I may not have even been aware that the Province of Bitish Columbia (where I live) has rolled out their open data portal at http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/ – the first of it’s kind in Canada. From the portal, DataBC will have about 2500 sets of data to start. This data is free, searchable and available for everyone to use.
The site puts data front and center although there are other resources that they make available, including a list of useful open mapping resources and government web services (like GeoCommons), and quite interesting, a suggested list of apps built on open data. Finally, there’s also some suggested community resources, including a pointer to their Twitter account @data_BC as well as a blog for information about plans and updates. The Data catalog already has 100s of sources of data, most available as XLS or CSV files for quick download.