Access-to-Information

In light of challenges during the pandemic, the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Centre for Free Expression, News Media Canada and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression are extending the deadline for nominations for the 2020 Code of Silence awards for outstanding achievement in government secrecy to Monday, November 16, 2020.  The awards are given annually in each of four categories -- federal, provincial, municipal, and police services.

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.