Nobody wants to be accountable

Dear Editor:

What is the first thing that you think when a government blocks a duly-appointed oversight body from receiving information that it needs to perform the duties for which it was established in the first place, that being oversight of elected officials?

You would probably say that it’s because they have something to hide. After all, if the requested information does not incriminate or exonerates them, why would they block it?

The next thing you would probably think is, why do they establish these costly oversight bodies if they do not want them to uncover government malfeasance?

The plausible answer is that they want to give the appearance of oversight, where that oversight does not actually exist. If the oversight is on an opponent fine, but if the governing party is the target, they will block any attempt to obtain the incriminating evidence.

There are many examples of this some being the following:

• The Justin Trudeau-Liberal government’s refusal to provide the ethics commissioner with information required to adjudicate their ethics violation in the recent SNC-Lavalin scandal.

• The B.C. NDP government’s attempt to block the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth from getting access to government records.

The same thing happened in the case of the previous provincial Liberal government and the NDP opposition at that time complained vigorously.

Now apparently, it is OK to do so. • Governments of all stripes routinely block duly-appointed auditors generals, who are required to uncover wasteful government spending and obtain necessary information required to perform their duties. There are cases of the auditors taking the government to court to attempt to get the necessary documents causing delays and unnecessary court costs.

These ethical breaches by elected governments have become so common that they are considered standard operating procedure, and few, if any, consequences result. Claude Bergman Penticton