Access-to-Information

The Centre for Free Expression, along with its co-signers BCCLA, CAUT, CCLA, and PEN Canada, have written today to the CEOs of Zoom and YouTube to express deep concern with the companies’ censorship of an academic roundtable at an American university. This action points to the new threat to academic freedom when, because of the coronavirus, most classes and other educational activities of universities and colleges are only possible through platforms such as Zoom and YouTube. 

By Ken Rubin There's no real desire to remedy shortcomings. It is no longer good enough to continue holding Canadians hostage to incomplete data

By Ken Rubin Shocking revelations and events can stir the public. But that does not mean officials want to give up systemic secrecy practices and bring in wholesale corrective changes. So it was refreshing then for a change to see the Canadian military's medical team under Operation Laser acting as whistle blowers raising public attention about the dismal conditions and the on-going plight they found in long-term care homes. The data they provided about these homes would normally have been withheld.  

(Toronto: April 30, 2020)  Environment and Climate Change Canada has been named today as the 2019 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the federal category.

(Toronto: April 28, 2020)  The Government of Alberta is the 2019 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the provincial category.

By Ken Rubin April 25, 2020 - Secrecy and autocratic, erratic government should not become the new normal during or after the COVID-19 crisis. Rather, as former health minister Jane Philpott (currently working at COVID-19 intake centre) has said, what is needed is “radical transparency” to keep Canadians abreast of developments. Some see holding daily press conferences and putting some data on government websites as sufficient. Others see a limited-edition Parliament as being transparent. But neither is enough.