Officials opposed promise on transparency
2015 Trudeau election pledge
Among the broken promises made by Justin Trudeau, one that stands out was his 2015 election commitment that his and his ministers’ documents would come under Access to Information Act coverage.
Once he was in power, Canadians quickly learned that coverage would not happen. By 2019, Bill C-58 legislation had crushed that prospect, making sure that ministers’ offices would never be subject to full scrutiny under the act. Instead, what was offered up was some limited government-controlled publications consisting of sanitized summary data from the PMO and about ministers’ briefings and expenses.
Now, the Privy Council Office, after a five-year delay has sent me, via mail, in response to an April 12, 2016, access to information request, documents that show that even if Trudeau had followed through on his promise, it was unwanted and opposed by senior officials.
These March/april 2016 records indicate that ministerial coverage would be blocked by adding more exemptions and exclusion grounds to ensure most PMO and ministers’ offices’ records remained secret.
The three options put forward for internal discussion in a March 2016 PCO document entitled “Options for Reform” were:
“Option one: Full application (of the access act); no new exclusions or exceptions beyond what currently exists; retroactive; no new capacity or resources.”
“Option two: Moderate application; some new exclusions or exceptions; go forward (only) basis; modest new capacity/resources.”
“Option three: Minimal application; significant new exclusions or exceptions (plus delayed release); delayed implementation, significant new capacity/resources.”
Suggested ways to weaken access to ministerial records included:
❚ Putting whole categories of records outside coverage;
❚ Bringing the full force of exemptions and exclusion to bear so as to deny policy and cabinet records and offer up only a few administrative records;
❚ Not allowing access to any past data before the startup date;
❚ Postponing the date such coverage took force;
❚ Giving a longer legal response time than the normal 30 days to reply.
Further, ministerial offices would be segregated as independent government institutions, separate from departments, ensuring their records were treated differently than departmental ones and would be subject to time-delaying consultations.
Otherwise, the reasoning went, without special, tighter status and more secrecy protection for ministerial records, there could be “unintended consequence(s).” Subjecting ministerial records to access to information coverage would result in too much of an uncomfortable
“chilling effect.” It would mean unwanted oversight and compliance should the office of the information commissioner be able to independently review the Pmo/ministers’ access decisions records.
The PCO records show that by November 2015, various access to information co-ordinators had written PCO and Treasury Board officials expressing alarm that such coverage would impose an undue administrative/ operational burden on them, the PMO and ministers and their departments. Some believed, too, that information commissioner investigators would be too inexperienced to review their access decisions on ministerial records and would essentially waste their time.
A telling Nov. 19, 2015, PCO note indicated that covering ministers’ offices “may prompt (such offices) to write differently or even not at all.”
So when transparency advocates now ask Trudeau to restore and keep his promise to have publicly funded ministers’ offices covered, thinking of a pending election, they need to know that the original promise made was devious and calculated
PROMISE MADE WAS DEVIOUS AND CALCULATED AND RESISTED BY SENIOR OFFICIALS.
and resisted by senior officials. And in fact, the Trudeau government opted for a fourth final solution in Bill C-58: total and permanent exclusion of PMO and ministers’ records from Access to Information Act coverage.
The only breaks from this excessive secrecy came when the government faced off with Parliament during the Scn-lavalin and WE Charity scandals and the pandemic crisis. Trudeau, to save his political skin, then had some PMO and ministerial operational records released while ridding himself of underlings and getting others to take the blame.
But the prime minister continues to insist in the mandate letters he issues to ministers that they must be transparent and accountable, despite the law his government passed that forbids his ministers from releasing their ministerial records.
In contrast, as the PCO options document notes, in New Zealand (another parliamentary democracy) “most advice to ministers is released within a couple of months of decision even on major policy matters that involve cabinet (eg. budget).”
In Canada, when it comes to ministerial records, senior officials and the Trudeau government have legalized and entrenched extreme topdown secrecy that corrupts accountability, prevents timely and wholesome public access, and curtails democracy. This must be challenged and changed.