A 1976 request for information about government toxicology testing went as well as you’d think it would. (Photograph by Shutterstock.com)

Right to Know Week, which began on Sunday, is supposed to be an opportunity to “raise awareness about people’s right to access government information while promoting freedom of information as essential to both democracy and good governance.” In practice, it’s often an opportunity for members of the freedom of information community to discuss the limitations of that right in Canada.

However, it’s important to remember that those limitations are as persistent as they are frustrating. Consider, for example, the experience of freelance writer Joan Liska back in 1976. In a letter sent to Vera Gellman, chief of the development division of the federal government’s product safety branch, Liska complained about the “shabby treatment” she had received in her requests for information about the “test protocols used for potentially hazardous substances.” Specifically, the freelancer stated:

“I have been requesting copies of the test protocols used by toxicologists working in relation to the Hazardous Products Act and Regulations for MONTHS already. But my requests have gone completely ignored. The replies always the same – namely, a brief letter remarking on the legislation and enclosing the legislation.

I have now at least 12 copies of the legislation and regulations. However, this is NOT what my letters asked for. In each letter, I specifically requested the toxicology tests, the ‘Acute, sub-acute and chronic’ animal studies, used in relation to the legislation. The legislation itself does not even mention the ‘acute, sub-acute and chronic’ tests, let alone the battery of other toxicology tests involved.

Please do not send me the legislation or regulations again. I want the test protocols for toxicity which manufacturers are required to perform – the ‘safety tests’ – before manufacturers can release a product in relation to the Hazardous Products Act & Regulations, on the consumer market…It is a disgrace that a Canadian citizen should thus be refused information on the safety tests conducted by her Government. One’s suspicion is escalated by this secrecy.”¹Joan Liska to Vera Gellman, August 19, 1976.

I’m sure almost anyone who is the business of routinely seeking information from the government has wanted to write a letter like this. I know I have. The question is what will it take to put an end to this kind of obstructionism?