THE NEED TO KNOW NOW

News media live by disclosure, so we cheerfully acknowledge that we have a dog in the hunt for reform of freedom of information rules. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that a free flow of information from government to the people whom government serves is essential to the healthy functioning of any society that professes to be open and democratic.

Citizens have a right to know because without adequate knowledge they cannot wisely delegate authority to those whom they elect. Politicians pay lip service to this fundamental principle, and yet, here in British Columbia, they unfortunately have been less than enthusiastic when it comes to the reality of their implied duty.

Journalists, individuals and activists are familiar with the difficulty in prying even the most basic of information from officialdom. There are often interminable delays in releasing information and, as our columnist Ian Mulgrew and legislature reporter Rob Shaw reported recently, it’s not uncommon for released documents to be so censored they are rendered virtually meaningless. We’ve had scandals over government deletion of electronic files; over ministerial stalling in the release of public records; and the erection of barriers to access through the threat of exorbitant fees for provision of public documents and information.

Indeed, as the most recent report from departing Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham shows, our provincial government has been going backwards in its performance regarding freedom of information requests. In 2011, government responded in timely fashion — that’s roughly meeting the 30-day time frame established by legislation — to 93 per cent of information access requests. By 2014, despite Premier Christy Clark’s election promises of greater access and transparency, response timeliness had dwindled to 74 per cent of requests. It is evidence of the emergence of that culture of secrecy identified by a whistleblower who revealed that government ministers and high political officials were deliberately destroying electronic government records in the so-called “triple delete” scandal.

There are now hints from government that Finance Minister Mike de Jong is poised to announce new rules for release of public records. This follows an attempt by The Vancouver Sun to obtain the emails of 20 cabinet ministers, more than half of whom failed to meet their statutory release obligations.

So reform is overdue. But is government sincere?

We’ll believe it when we see it.