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Representatives of the Centre for Free Expression Whistleblowing Initiatives meet for several hours with the Ontario Long Term Care - COVID-19 Commission to talk about both the importance of effective whistleblower protection for those involved in the long term care sector and what that protection should look like. A copy of the transcript of the meeting with the Commission and our PowerPoint presentation are available at the links below. For further information, contact the Centre at cfe@ryerson.ca

Well, hello again. Having ended last month's column with a candid appeal for readers to "talk back" about free speech, I was grateful to those who took me at my word. They made me think new thoughts, which is, of course, the whole idea.

Access to information (ATI) is animated by a simple principle: the public ought to know. Despite governments unfortunately tending towards secrecy and risk-aversion, a free flow of information is absolutely vital for democracy. ATI, then, is an important democratic safeguard, to mitigate the negative predilections of government and ensure a robust state of public discourse. ATI legislation first emerged in Sweden in 1766, but it wasn’t until the postwar era that it began to flourish in a number of other liberal democracies.