Access-to-Information

by Max Binks-Collier, Writer and Graduate Student, Ryerson University’s School of Journalism

The Canadian Association of Journalists, the Centre for Free Expression, News Media Canada and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression are inviting nominations for the 2019 Code of Silence awards for outstanding achievement in government secrecy. The awards are given annually in the fall in each of four categories -- federal, provincial, municipal and police services. If you have met resistance in getting information from a public body, please send us your nomination for a deserving award recipient along with the reasons why it should be chosen. 

The ministers overseeing Health, Justice and Innovation departments must do a better job of living up to the prime minister's promises of transparency. By Ken Rubin June 17, 2019 - There comes a time, as the 2019 election looms, that the Trudeau government's handling of access to information requests of public importance needs to be more specifically exposed.

Public Safety Canada confirms that this information gatekeeper exists, and notes the concept for it was briefly mentioned in the government's 2017 national security green paper. Yet there's not a word on it in the national security Bill C-59. By Ken Rubin

The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom has named Ken Rubin, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Free Expression, as its 2018-19 recipient of the Spencer Moore Award for Lifetime Contributions in pursuit of press freedom and freedom of information. 

Entering the Secrecy Club: Judges, the PM  and PMO Head the List in Bill C-58    By Ken Rubin April 29, 2019 - Judging from the Senators' orchestrated recent cave-in removing the public from getting individual judges expenses, Canada's access to information act is well on its way to being made irrelevant.  What the judges' lobby organizations succeeded in doing, without having to go in-camera to twist arms, was to remove from Bill C-58 any traceable idea of what individual judges spend.