Federal access changes fall short
In the run-up to the last federal election, here is what the Trudeau Liberals said they would do on the subject of transparency:
“We will amend the Access to Information Act so that all government data and information is made open by default in machine-readable, digital formats.
We will also ensure that Access to Information applies to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices, as well as administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts.”
Unfortunately, you can still find those words on the web, only now they seem laughable compared to what the Liberals actually did to modernize Access to Information.
To be fair, this first major update to transparency laws in three decades does do some things.
The changes will give real teeth to the information commissioner through the ability to force government agencies and ministries to release information. Under the status quo all the commissioner can do is recommend release, and ultimately take the matter to court, a long and laborious process.
The watchdog will also have the authority to issue directives about timeliness. Last year, out of more than 75,000 requests, only 64 per cent of them were completed within the legislated 30 days. With this new power, the watchdog should be able to at least reduce that problem.
But here is where the changes fall short, and ultimately are a failure compared to what the Liberals promised. The disclosure rules still will not cover the Prime Minister’s Office or cabinet documents. In a weak attempt to cover that broken promise there is a new measure that would compel ministries to disclose certain information. But the government will control what information, which largely invalidates that as an improvement.
Also, the new rules still allow officials to black out any information they deem necessary. At least now they have to offer some justification, but the central problem remains, and certainly makes an outright lie of the Liberal promise to default to openness.
This is hardly new. When in opposition, the Harper Conservatives were rabid activists on the need to radically increase transparency and accountability. Once they were elected, that commitment disappeared and they ended up being among the most opaque governments in recent memory.
According to a Toronto Star report, cabinet confidentiality was invoked a record 3,100 times during 2013-14, 40 per cent more than the previous year.
But that was the Harper government. The Trudeau Liberals successfully convinced Canadians they really would be different on a host of issues, transparency among them. The reality is quite different.
We can take some comfort that the new rules call for the laws to be updated every five years. So the government might yet live up to its promise on freedom of information. Just not this time.