Access-to-Information

By Ken Rubin January 28, 2019 - The new year brings with it at least four basic problems that put transparency under threat.  Problem one: “pro-active” sanitized data and propaganda dominates Bill C-58 Canadian government officials and politicians like to spin their messages and manipulate records.No better example of this is found in Bill C-58 where the government gives itself license to post at itsr own pace, and then unilaterally destroy when convenient,government “free” sanitized or selected summary information.

There’s been a ceasefire in the “legal Twitter war” between Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and three people who sued him for blocking them from his Twitter account.  The three plaintiffs argued that in blocking them, Mayor Watson was violating their constitutional right to free expression.   Eventually Watson and the plaintiffs reached a legal settlement.  But initially the Mayor’s position was that he would fight the suit on the grounds that the Twitter account in question was held in his personal and not mayoral capacity and therefore, constitutional rights weren’t applicable.  

Nov. 19, 2018 — Ambulance New Brunswick is the 2018 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the provincial category. The award is given annually by The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University (CFE), News Media Canada and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) to call public attention to government departments and agencies that put extra effort into denying public access to government information to which the public has a right under access to information legislation.

OTTAWA /  — The federal department of finance, headed by minister Bill Morneau, is the 2018 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the federal category.

ST. CATHARINES, ON, Oct. 15, 2018 /CNW/ - The Regional Municipality of Niagara is the 2018 recipient of the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy in the category of municipal government.

By Ken Rubin October 15, 2018 - Treasury Board President Scott Brison was hard at it on October 3 selling Bill C-58 as a great transparency advance, which it is not.  Kicking off Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee deliberations on Bill C-58, Brison boasted that Canada is rated number 1 by fellow governments for its open data portal. But that's despite Canada's Access to Information Act being moved down to 55th  on the Global Right to Information index scale that compares over 120 country's FOI legislation.