So much for more open government under PM

For the second year in a row, a Canadian prime minister attended the annual parliamentary press gallery dinner, and for the second year in a row, Justin Trudeau was charming and funny. Clearly, the man is accessible, in contrast to the previous prime minister, who avoided such events with determination.

But as with many things Trudeau, symbolic shows of openness haven’t entirely been matched by the actions of his government. Days after the merriment among journalists and their political guests, Canada’s information commissioner released her annual report on government accessibility — and it’s as grim as it was under that last prime minister.

Suzanne Legault talks of the “hopeful” tone that accompanied the election of the Liberals in late 2015. Promises to share information in a reasonable manner with taxpayers abounded early and ministerial mandate letters urged openness from federal departments.

But, concludes Legault, “The year is ending with a shadow of disinterest on behalf of the government.

“Our investigations reveal, once again, that the (Access to Information) Act is being used as a shield against transparency and is failing to meet its policy objective to foster accountability and trust in our government.”

She notes the ongoing “culture of secrecy within the public service,” adding the Clerk of the Privy Council, the highest ranking bureaucrat, has given his troops no direction on transparency.

Why should Canadians care? In the shadow of the Trump administration’s crises or the mess that faces Britons, Canada’s chronic case of bureaucratic sphinctertightening and childish government message control seem minor.

They’re not. You’re entitled to a full accounting of how your tax dollars are used — and so are businesses, academics, artists, scientists, homemakers and anyone who uses the federal Access to Information Act to try to pry loose information we should, frankly, all be able to get just by asking for it. Instead, the access law is repeatedly abused to withhold answers from Canadians.

Legault’s office investigated the deletion of e-mails by an employee at Shared Services Canada, the agency that has run into trouble trying to update the government’s IT systems. The agency got a request for all its e-mails that mentioned the Liberal party since it had taken office. An employee forwarded 12 pages, but it turned out that almost 400 pages of e-mails were delete after the formal request was received. That sounds like someone breaking the law, and the case had gone to the attorney general.

In another instance, the RCMP was asked, using the access act, for communications around its decision not to conduct a perjury probe of one of the officers who testified before a commission on the death of Robert Dziekanski, the Polish immigrant who was tasered and died at Vancouver Airport in 2007. The information commissioner’s investigation of why no records were released turned up the amazing discovery that the RCMP didn’t have any. “This is a serious gap in the historical record of a tragic case that has a high level of public interest, a gap that raises accountability issues within the RCMP,” Legault’s report notes.

The lapses go on: Lags in making information available about SNCLavalin’s overbillings of government; problems with Canada Post not explaining why some people aren’t getting their mail; the refusal by a government agency to release a harmless map; attempts to withhold historical documents — from 1918 — by Library and Archives Canada.

Legault’s data show things are not improving under the Liberals.