What will it take to break the control of public relations over government information? (Graphic by Shutterstock.com)

SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN? There could be something happening here but what it is ain’t exactly clear.

That’s what I’m thinking after the publication of yet another column excoriating the obstructionism of government communications officials.

Including my own open letter addressed to those officials, it’s the third such column written this year, winning plaudits from fellow reporters.

So to put all that activity in perspective, I’ve Storified those columns and some of the reaction to them – a collection that suggests Canadian spin doctors may be finally pushing their information control efforts too far.

You can check it out here.

ACCESS COMMITTEE PROCRASTINATES ON STUDYING REFORM The House of Commons committee responsible for Canada’s records access law won’t be studying recommendations to fix that legislation before the upcoming election.

Information commissioner Suzanne Legault made those recommendations in a report released at the end of March.

Earlier this month, NDP MP Charlie Angus, a committee member, proposed inviting Legault to “inform us on what she found in her report and her recommendations.”

Speaking in support of that proposal, fellow NDP MP Charmaine Borg stated, “I think it is important that we have the opportunity to ask questions about these recommendations to determine what we, as parliamentarians, can do. I think it would be good to leave a legacy for the next Parliament.”

But the committee – which has a Conservative majority – unsurprisingly voted down the motion, cutting off an opportunity to discuss how secretive the Canadian government has become.

NEWSPAPER DOESN’T FOLLOW PAPER TRAIL RECOMMENDATION Last month, the Globe and Mail joined with the Toronto Star in endorsing Legault’s report. But it’s worth remembering the newspaper’s editorial board also been somewhat equivocal in its support for one of the principle reforms in that report.

Legault has recommended new rules that would force federal officials to document their decision-making. After all, if that doesn’t happen, there will be no records for the public to request under the Access to Information Act.

Yet, when a similar recommendation was made by information commissioners in British Columbia and Ontario, the Globe and Mail wrote, “While officials should certainly create written records of actual decisions, cabinet ministers and their closest advisers should be free to talk about the reasons for a decision without making a paper or electronic memorandum. Their motives and purposes are best scrutinized in parliamentary debate, question periods and legislative committees.”

In other words, the paper seems to believe the public doesn’t need to know exactly how and why government decisions are made, so long as they can ask questions about that process – which, by the way, the government routinely refuses to answer. And whatever could be wrong with that?

ALLIED FORCES? Of course, the Globe and Mail isn’t alone in its equivocal support for freedom of information. As I’ve written before, the Canadian news media have sometimes appeared to be inconstant allies of this cause.

Indeed, in the 1979 book Administrative Secrecy in Developed Countries, Carleton University political science professor Donald C. Rowat offered this explanation as to why that might be:

To reporters and the news media, the lack of a general right of access to administrative documents is not directly apparent as a serious problem because their concern is with immediate news of a policy nature, and because of the huge flow of publications and information released by the federal and provincial government…

Moreover, ministers issue many news releases and may hold press conferences. They or senior officials are often willing to grant interviews in which they give background information and views which are not for quotation or attribution. All this creates the impression that there is a free flow of administrative information. Reporters tend to forget that they do not have access to the original information and documents, and that the Government releases to them only what it chooses to release.

But I wonder whether increased obfuscation by the government public relations professionals who prepare those releases are now reminding reporters about that lack of access?

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• Information commissioner Suzanne Legault said last week the government is setting a “perilous precedent” by retroactively changing the law to deny access to long gun registry records. On Apr. 5, 2012, government legislation ordering the destruction of those records came into force. But, before that happened, someone filed an access request for them. That meant those records couldn’t legally be destroyed until after the request was completed – something Legault reminded the government of. But the RCMP went ahead and deleted much of the electronic information it had, subsequently providing the requester with partial access to that data. A complaint was filed and the commissioner advised government charges could be laid against the RCMP under the Access to Information Act – something the government’s legal change would rule out.

• If you need a primer on that controversial change, the Canadian Press’s Bruce Cheadle has assembled a timeline of all the key dates leading up to it. Cheadle also had the story about the reason for that change before anyone else did.

• The National Post, the Montreal Gazette and the Telegram have all written editorials condemning the government’s plan to retroactively deny access to long gun registry records. And the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association has penned a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper conveying the same message.

• The Toronto Star reports that, since the Conservatives took office, eight government watchdogs and three senior bureaucrats have been “stifled or impugned” as a result of being forthright. The most recent addition to that list is outspoken correctional investigator of Canada Howard Sapers. (hat tip: Murray Langdon)

• The National Post paraphrases former Statistics Canada head Munir Sheikh as saying there is still time to “reinstate the long form census for 2016 – but that decision must be made by June, ahead of the federal election in the fall. Otherwise we lose two censuses in a row, with consequently greater harm to Canada’s statistical foundations.”

• Commenting on the government’s apparent lack of interest in evidence-based decision-making, Scientists for the Right to Know president Margrit Eichler writes, “It seems that our government likes to fly blind. The problem is, we are all sitting in the same plane. Once instruments have been as thoroughly destroyed as they have been by this government, it is not a simple matter to re-install them. And the crash will affect us all.”

• The Toronto Star’s public editor Kathy English praises the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression’s sixth annual report, writing that it is “packed full of such eloquent, thoughtful articles and essays that speak loudly and clearly to the many threats to freedom of expression and the right to information — and why we should care.”

• The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression has posted the top takeaways and talking points from its full-day conference on the problems plaguing our access to information system.

• The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association had its annual general meeting last week. The meeting featured a talk by civil libertarian Carmen Cheung on the federal government’s anti-terrorism legislation.

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark thinks the province’s freedom of information law is in need of reform. He tells the Calgary Herald, “Provisions intended to provide a shield to protect people’s privacy, are being used as a sword by governments and powerful individuals to prevent the release of information to which Albertans are entitled.” Clark was reacting to news that “the expenses of a former chief executive of the Calgary Health Region remain shrouded in secrecy nearly three years after media outlets and opposition parties requested their release.”

• CBC News reports Alberta’s information commissioner and public interest commissioner have announced a joint investigation into the allegedly improper destruction of documents by the province’s outgoing Progressive Conservative government. Following that announcement, at the request of premier-designate Rachel Notley, the deputy minister of executive council ordered Alberta’s ministries to stop any shredding. (hat tip: Keith Stewart)

• The Calgary Herald writes that Alberta’s new government should act on provincial information commissioner Jill Clayton’s recommendation to put in place a law that “compels public bodies to ‘document their decisions, actions, advice, recommendations and deliberations’ and ‘ensure that all records are covered in records retention and disposition schedules.’ If her advice is heeded, it will be much less likely that public records are imperilled as politicians change seats and the reins of power are handed over to a new crew.”

• The Vancouver Courier’s Geoff Olson writes that “journalists, activists and engaged citizens” still have no way to access the 33,000 boxes of British Columbia historic government documents that, until recently, were simply being stored in four warehouses. “This has been more than a major case of Vaulzheimer’s,” states Olson. “It’s been classification by default. In July, B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham expressed shock that the situation had gone on unaddressed for 10 years.”

• The Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer reports that BC NDP MLA Adrian Dix questioned why government lawyers said last year that records related to controversial firings at the province’s health ministry couldn’t be released because the matter was under police investigation. The reason: in early 2015, the government advised the wrongly-dismissed employees that the ministry wasn’t seeking such an investigation and “leaving the impression that the matter had been dropped some time earlier.” (hat tip: BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association)

• The Toronto Star reports that Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services spent three years fighting the release of information about when DNA was collected and tested in connection with the sexual assaults and killings committed by air force colonel Russell Williams. Those dates raise questions about whether faster testing could have saved the life of one of Williams’s victims.

• A CBC-Michener-Deacon investigation has revealed De Beers Canada paid just $226 in royalties on diamonds mined from the province’s only diamond mine. But that royalty information has previously been a “closely guarded secret” – something that has “baffled many experts consulted by the CBC, including accountants, and auditors.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The Winnipeg Free Press reports that when it asked for details of a new five-year contract between Manitoba’s chiropractors and the provincial Health Department, “a cabinet spokeswoman advised a reporter to file a freedom-of-information request. When the newspaper did, Manitoba Health refused to release any details of the contract. The Free Press then filed a complaint with the provincial ombudsman. A few days ago, with the ombudsman’s help, the government released many of the contract details. Missing, however, was any financial information, including the government’s per-visit contribution this year and in subsequent years.”

• The Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom and Ontario’s eight independent legislative officers have criticized the provincial government’s plan to significantly reduce their oversight powers over Hydro One.

• The New Brunswick government will “soon post nursing home and special care home inspections online” after a “lengthy push by the Telegraph-Journal to see the documents.”

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “One of the secret documents related to Markham’s failed NHL arena project has been made public,” reports the Toronto Star. “But it doesn’t show much, and a dozen other documents still remain secret.”

• The Penticton Herald reports Competition Bureau officials have denied the paper’s access to information request “seeking copies of complaints and reports from investigations into alleged [gas] price-fixing in the region over the past four years. What came back was a document that appears to show the existence of 75 pages, each of which was withheld under the Competition Act.”

• The Toronto Star reports the video footage captured by Toronto Police Service body cameras “will be subject to Freedom of Information legislation, meaning citizens can make a request to access a copy.” (hat tip: Allan Pollock)

• Vaughan, Ont. Mayor Maurizo Bevilacqua is “pushing ahead with his pledge to regulate lobbyists at city hall,” according to the city’s local newspaper. “But it appears he might face opposition from some of his council colleagues.”

• The Chronicle-Guide reports, “Documents related to the Town of Arnprior’s computer system may not have to be released to a private citizen after all. An Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) of Ontario adjudicator has accepted a town request to reconsider the order.” Earlier, the newspaper reported the Ontario town has been withholding those documents for about 10 years.

• The News reports Maple Ridge, B.C.’s citizen’s representative committee is holding two public input nights where participants will be asked two questions: 1) Is the information that is currently available easy to find and easy to understand? In other words, is it useful? 2) Is there any information that is currently not available that should be?

Have a news tip about about the state of democracy, openness and accountability in Canada? You can email me at this address.

Should the public really be able to look inside this metaphorical envelope? (Photograph by Shutterstock.com)

Is using private email standard operating procedure for those working in government?

Why is British Columbia’s government removing penalties for document destruction?

And how come journalists in Vancouver weren’t allowed to broadcast pictures of the room where a telephone town hall was being run?

Those are just some of the many questions raised by stories about freedom of information that made headlines and twitter posts in Canada last week.

My column, which usually accompanies this news roundup, has been delayed due to teaching commitments. It’ll return next week.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• Scott Reid, who served as a senior advisor and communications director to Prime Minister Paul Martin, tweets this observation about how public officials communicate: “Everyone at every level of government, in every party uses private email. It’s SOP. Reflects nat desire to discuss stuff bluntly.” (hat tip: Merv Adey)

• CBC News reports, “Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s dire warning about why the government can’t release certain electronic data under access to information requests seems to have left his senior staff mystified, newly disclosed documents show.”

• “A New Democrat MP is asking the federal information watchdog to investigate a former Conservative ministerial staffer’s systematic deletion of emails,” according to the Canadian Press.

• The Canadian Press reports, “The Federal Court of Appeal has sent a stern message to government institutions: you can’t just make up any old deadline for responding to requests under the Access to Information Act.” (hat tip: Dean Beeby)

• Everyone “has called for more transparency” in the Canadian Judicial Council’s proceedings. But, according to Canadian Lawyer magazine, “no one can agree on what that means, especially as the CJC clings to extreme confidentiality at the early stages of investigations.”

• The Military Police Complaints Commission “has gone to court to challenge the secrecy of Canada’s Defence Department and its refusal to make public its response to the investigation into a solider’s suicide,” according to the Toronto Star.

• University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist writes that “the privacy commissioner of Canada set out to audit the RCMP in the hope of uncovering the details behind” warrentless requests for telecom subscriber information. “What it encountered instead was inaccurate data and an effort to downplay” the commissioner’s public reporting of those problems.

• “The bad news for any Canadian politician inspired by Hillary Clinton to set up a do-it-yourself email system is that it could potentially involve the Mounties, handcuffs, and a two-year sojourn in the slammer,” according to the Canadian Press.

• National Post’s John Ivison writes that Canada’s parliamentary system is “stacked against any meaningful review of spending, at least until the Public Accounts of Canada are tabled, 200 days after the fiscal year they cover.

• The Winnipeg Free Press’s Mary Agnes Welch makes an argument against bureaucratese, writing, “If we citizens don’t demand clear, simple, precise language from our elected officials, then it’s our own fault if they continue to snow us with words designed to thwart our right to know.”

• The Lobby Monitor’s Alyssa O’Dell had this reaction after filing a few freedom of information requests with the European Union via email: “15 day response deadline. Madness?!” Canada’s own Access to Information Law gives the federal government 30 days to respond. (hat tip: Jeremy Nuttall)

• The Globe and Mail has become the first Canadian media organization to use Secure Drop, a “channel for anonymous and encrypted Internet communications that can link potential sources withy investigative journalists.”

• The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization has published its first report on “Internet-related issues of access to information and knowledge, freedom of expression, privacy, and the ethical dimensions of the Information Society.” (hat tip: Kirsten Smith)

• Ottawa-based investigative researcher Ken Rubin writes that users of Canada’s Access to Information Act have “come up against the brutal limitations of what is provided [under that legislation] and what is not.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association reports that British Columbia’s government has introduced a law that will remove existing penalties for destroying government records.

• CBC News reports, “Major changes are coming to access to information laws in Newfoundland and Labrador following the much-anticipated release Tuesday morning of a report prepared by an independent commission.”

• The Toronto Star reports, “A provincial panel has recommended sweeping changes to controversial legislation that allows Ontario hospitals to investigate critical incidents of patient harm and death in secret.”

• Northwest Territories MLAs have passed a motion to “investigate the implementation of a lobbyist registry that would be publicly accessible online,” according to the Northern Journal.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• According to the StarPhoenix, a report into a Saskatoon city hall leak reveals “bizarre levels of secrecy that hint at how much our municipal government is shielding from citizens.”

• Global News reports a public telephone town hall on Vancouver’s upcoming transit plebiscite was “not as public as some would like. The number to dial in was not immediately available and while journalists were allowed to record an audio feed of the proceedings, they were not allowed to broadcast pictures of the room.” (hat tip: IntegrityBC)

• Freelancer Bob Mackin tweets that a spokesperson was copied on freedom of information request correspondence he received from the City of Vancouver. But, in an email, the spokesperson – Marcella Munro, who works with the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation – stated, “I have nothing to do with FOIs and I have no idea why it was sent to me. As far as I know it was a mistake by the office in Vancouver.”

• The Globe and Mail paraphrases Chris Bejnar, the co-chair of a Brampton, Ont. watchdog group, as saying “he has been disturbed by lack of openness he’s seen between city staff and the public. When filing freedom of information requests to find out the square footage of a building in the downtown redevelopment plan, or how the city had calculated the cost per square foot, he was rebuffed by staff and eventually got the information only after complaining to the province’s privacy commissioner.”

• Gerard Daly, a board member for New Brunswick’s Regional Services Commission 11 “wants the organization to be more transparent and forthcoming with public information.” The Daily Gleaner paraphrases Daly as saying “a good example of information not being made available centres around a hike that occurred in the rate of the tipping fee – the price paid when delivering refuse to the landfill site. Daly said RSC 11 staff recommended the fee be increased by $10 but, at the end of the day, it was raised by $1.50. No one on the board was prepared to approve it, he said. But none of the circumstances that led to the matter being voted down was ever made public.”

• The Telegraph-Journal reports Saint John councillors have “unanimously approved” the city’s first open data policy. During that process, they “also gave a green light to a pilot project that will see city staff start to post data online related to six key categories: public safety, energy and utilities, recreation, financial information, municipal planning and economic development.”

• CBC News reports Greater Sudbury, Ont. “has joined a growing number of governments to launch an open data program…The first release in Sudbury is three data sets on the city transit system, including the real-time movements of buses.”

• City councillors in both Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, B.C. are “looking for engaged citizens to help jump start a conversation on making municipal government more accessible and transparent.”

• The Sachem reports Haldimand County, Ont. has “opened an online Open Data Repository” that will provide “residents and those beyond our borders with the opportunity to view maps and other geographic data.”

Have a news tip about about the state of democracy, openness and accountability in Canada? You can email me at this address.

Liberal MP Ted Hsu’s private member’s bill to reinstate the mandatory long-form census had no real chance of passing. Too bad not every news outlet let their audience know that. (Photograph by Ted Hsu)

Small, tiny and slim: these are all words that describe the chances of an opposition private member’s bill actually becoming law. Yet, when reporting on those bills, news outlets don’t always tell their audiences that, potentially giving a mistaken impression of how much democracy we have in Canada.

The government sponsors most of the bills that become law. But parliamentarians can also propose their own bills without government backing. These so-called private member’s bills could be a powerful means of dealing with issues the government doesn’t want to deal with.

I say “could” because few of them ever become law.

For example, according to the Parliament of Canada’s LEGISInfo research tool, 3,224 private member’s bills have been introduced or re-instated in the House of Commons between Jan. 17, 1994 and Friday last week. But, by my reckoning, only 69 or 2.1 percent of them bills received royal assent.

If that sounds bad, just wait because it gets even worse.

Opposition MPs sponsored just 21 of the bills that received royal assent, with over half of them concerned with issues of little controversy – such as renaming constituencies or creating commemorative days.

In part, that’s because parliamentary rules make it difficult to debate and vote on such legislation.

But, thanks to rigid party discipline, MPs rarely against their own party anyway. And, thanks to rigid partisanship, governing parties rarely vote for legislation introduced by their competitors. Which is why so few opposition private member’s bills get passed when a governing party holds a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

Nevertheless, not all of the reporting on private member’s bills lets Canadians in on that open secret and some even inadvertently cover it up.

For example, according to the Canadian Newsstand database, newspapers and the Canadian Press wire service have published at least 25 articles covering Liberal MP Ted Hsu’s proposal to restore the mandatory long-form census.

Thirteen of those articles dutifully reported that there was, in the words of a Globe and Mail editorial, “almost no chances it would pass.” But others didn’t mention that possibility or led readers to believe there was a chance it would pass.

One major daily published an editorial describing Hsu’s bill as a “golden opportunity” that the Tories should “jump on” to make amends for eliminating the long-form census. Meanwhile, another ran an op-ed lamenting the loss of “granular data on jobs and wages” that came with that survey but stating, “Not all is lost” thanks to Hsu bill.

Of course, that bill went on to be defeated earlier this month by a vote of 147 to 126, with all but one Conservative MP opposing Hsu’s bill.

But much more is at stake here than getting Canadians hopes up before dashing them.

Most MPs, especially those who belong to an opposition party, don’t have much say in making our laws. As a result, those who voted for them (in other words, Canadians) don’t have much say either, making democracy between elections a bit of a sham.

That has everything to do with our system of government and nothing to do with our sitting prime minister, who is just exercising the power afforded to him under that system.

One way reporters can help Canadians better understand that is by simply remembering to add an extra line in their coverage of opposition private member’s bills.

It could even be something like this: “A snowball has a greater chance in Hell than this legislation does of becoming law.”

Well, maybe not quite that. But you get the idea.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• FactsCan.ca, a Website that will fact-check the 2015 federal election, has succeeded in crowdfunding the $5,000 it needs to launch. The Website’s team includes RainCity Housing and Support Society community support worker Jacob Schroeder, Democracy Watch coordinator Tyler Sommers and Ryerson University senior research associate Dana Wagner.

• CBC News reports, “U.S. legislation requires American universities and colleges to be open about the number of sexual assaults on their campuses, warn students when they could be at risk and provide adequate security and prevention measures.” But no such legislation exists in Canada. (hat tip: Bruce Gillespie)

• The Toronto Star reports a lawyer for the media is arguing that “barring journalists from interviewing Omar Khadr, a federal prison is violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

• CBC News’s Dean Beeby tweets that he’s received 84 blank pages from the Department of Finance in response to a request for the cost of the government’s expanded child fitness tax credit. The reason for that redaction: it’s a cabinet confidence.

• Beeby tweets the Canada Revenue Agency is now responding to access requests with “password-protected CDs. But password failed – one more [freedom of information] obstacle.”

• CTV News’s Jon Woodward tweets that Health Canada “claims a new record for latest ATIP provided to me! Two years, 6 months, 25 days. Way older than my daughter.”

• Journalist David Akin tweets that it’s ironic that the federal government has announced $143,288 in funding for Self-Counsel Press Ltd. – which recently published an access to information guidebook.

• Planned Parenthood Ottawa president Lauren Dobson-Hughes tweets this interaction with an access to information officer: “Your ATI is 1,000 days late. Can we just drop it? If you don’t reply in five days, we’ll take that as a yes.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The British Columbia government has introduced legislation that will see government records digitized and stored in an electronic archive. But the BC NDP and information commissioner Elizabeth Denham are concerned the bill doesn’t legally require government to document key actions and decisions.

• The Toronto Star reports a court-ordered publication ban is preventing the media from naming a 45-year-old mother who was sentenced to 20-months in jail for pressing a hot iron against the arms of her 10-year-old son.

• The Tyee reports British Columbia’s former lobbyists registrar is now lobbying that province’s government on behalf of a company that publishes school yearbooks.

• According to the Regina Leader-Post, the Saskatchewan government has amended its freedom of information legislation to allow the release of “personal information included in a report stemming from a Municipalities Act inspection or inquiry.”

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “The three hospitals caught up in the Rob Ford privacy breach saga boast they are ‘transparent and accountable.'” But, according to the Toronto Star, those hospitals are “refusing to disclose how many staff members snooped into his records or how they were disciplined.”

• The Georgia Straight reports on nuggets from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games’s archives – much of which is still under lock and key.

• Kitchener, Ont. Coun. Frank Etherington writes that fellow politicians “across Waterloo Region are in the process of abandoning voter accountability, government transparency and the public’s unquestionable right to know how $8 million of taxpayers cash will be spent.”

• “The secret documents behind a secret deal to build an NHL-size arena in Markham will stay secret – even though the project was defeated by council more than a year ago,” according to the Toronto Star.

• The Vaughan Citizen has renewed its call for the Ontario city to introduce a lobbyist registry.

• Maple Ridge, B.C.’s council has voted to increase the number of meetings it broadcasts on the Internet and disclose all of the contracts the city has entered into, according to the Maple Ridge Times.

Have a news tip about about the state of democracy, openness and accountability in Canada? You can email me at this address.

Author’s note: Publication of this column was delayed due to Family Day. Its regular publication schedule will resume next week.

imeshose who care about Canadians’ right to know didn’t get many presents from the government over the holiday season. (Photograph by Shutterstock.com)

HOLIDAY HANGOVER The winter break is over and so is this column’s hiatus. That means I’ve assembled a lengthy collection of all the freedom of information news you may have missed over the holidays. From now on, I’ll also be dividing that roundup into federal, provincial and local news. Look for further commentary next week. Enjoy!

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• In an interview with the Toronto Star, Treasury Board President Tony Clement — who is responsible for administering the country’s Access to Information Act — acknowledged there’s a need to review that legislation. But he said his government has “run out of time” to do that in a “meaningful” way. This, despite the fact his party promised in 2006 to simply “implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.” (hat tip: Dean Beeby)

• Clement also told the Canadian Press that some data can’t be released to the public in an electronic format because the government doesn’t want to “create a file that can be in some way manipulated and altered, and thereby creating a situation of false information.” But the Treasury Board Secretariat was unable to provide Maclean’s magazine with any examples of such manipulation taking place. Clement’s comments come as Canada’s information commissioner investigates “multiple cases where it appears that government departments aren’t releasing data in easy-to-read formats, even though the law requires it.”

• “The Canada Revenue Agency has destroyed all text message records of its employees and has disabled logging of these messages in the future,” according to the Toronto Star. (hat tip: Michael Karanicolas)

• “Three months after voting to undertake air strikes in Iraq, the federal government still hasn’t given a cost estimate for the mission to the Parliamentary Budget Officer,” according to the Ottawa Citizen.

• In an op-ed published in the Leader-Post, University of Saskatchewan history professor emeritus Bill Waiser writes, “The past few years have not been kind to [Canada’s] archives — through no fault of their own — and unless the situation improves, Canada’s understanding of its past will be decidedly poorer.”

• Mike De Souza, who has been hired as an investigative resources correspondent for Reuters, shares with readers some of his “recent experiences with government efforts to either release or hide information.” Among those experiences: a spokesperson telling colleagues that one of De Souza’s questions was “undeserving of a response.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The appointment of Amrik Virk as British Columbia’s new technology, innovation and citizens’ services minister has not been a comfort to journalists in that province. The reason: the BC NDP had released leaked emails appearing to show that when Virk on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s board of governors he knew more than he previously admitted about a plan to circumvent the province’s compensation disclosure guidelines. That means — in the words of to The Tyee’s Jeremy Nuttall — “a minister busted by leaked emails” is now going to be running the ministry responsible for freedom of information in British Columbia.

• “Hospitals can easily get around Ontario’s accountability legislation to hide executive expenses,” according to the Hamilton Spectator. The newspaper also reports “no outside agency monitors how hospital board and executive expenses are posted publicly online.”

• The British Columbia government has denied a freedom of information request by the Western News for information about how much a new jail is going to cost to taxpayers. The reason: the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services believes disclosing that information would harm the financial interests of the government and its business partners.

• “The B.C. Ambulance Service has refused to release data that would show whether it is taking longer to respond to 911 calls,” according to the Vancouver Sun. The reason: the agency responsible for that service is “concerned about ‘re-identification’ — that releasing the data may make it possible to identify individual patients, especially in smaller communities.”

• The Toronto Star reports the Ontario government has “no idea” how many complaints have been lodged against its Crown prosecutors or “how many have been disciplined for misconduct in recent years.”

• “Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin is demanding to know why the province’s police watchdog is keeping secret its findings from an investigation into an altercation involving an OPP officer that left an Orillia woman with a busted knee last year,” according to the Toronto Star.

• Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation wants to charge the Toronto Star $2,000 for information about the pass rates for drivers seeking a license to operate a tractor-trailer. The reason: a computer programmer would have to ‘write new code to extract the data from the ministry’s licensing and control system database.” But, according to the newspaper, “this appears to contradict earlier communication from the ministry, which told the Star in September that pass rates by driver examiner and DriveTest centre are tracked in monthly reports from Serco, the private company that administers driver exams in Ontario on behalf of the government.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The Leader-Post reports Saskatchewan’s new information commissioner plans to continue pushing for the province’s municipal police to be subject to the province’s freedom of information laws.

• The Edmonton Sun reports Alberta’s information commissioner is getting the provincial government to “cough up legal records” relating to its “ongoing $10-billion lawsuit against big tobacco.”

• CBC News reports an Alberta legislative committee “comprised mostly of Tory MLAs voted to cut about $1 million from six independent offices.” Those offices include the province’s information and privacy commissioner.

• When Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty was in power the Ontario government “billed taxpayers $10,000 to pay the husband of a top party official to wipe computer hard drives in Mr. McGuinty’s office,” according to the National Post. Those deletions happened as the “Liberals battled to contain the fallout” from the billion-dollar cancellation of two gas-fired power plants. (hat tip: BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association)

• The association representing Canada’s restaurant industry has written an open letter to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne asking her government to bring “accountability and transparency” to the province’s chicken prices. According to the association, “Waiting three years for chicken farmers to publish a simple and forthright price formula for a food staple many Ontario families put on their dinner table every night is simply not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable that the vested interest with the greatest stake in the price set for chicken, the producers themselves, should be in charge of the price-setting program.”

• The Burnaby News Leader reports that former British Columbia MLA Barry Jones, who pioneered the province’s freedom of information legislation, became interested in the issue while cleaning out the constituency office he had inherited from former legislator Eileen Dailly. That’s when he found a private members bill on FOI she had proposed. “I was about to throw it out and then started reading and got fascinated,” he told the newspaper.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• Manitoba’s ombudsman has found Winnipeg was technically within its rights to refuse a request by the Winnipeg Free Press for documents “revealing why city officials recommended buying and renovating the 56-year-old former Canada Post building instead of fixing the 48-year-old Public Safety Building.” But the ombudsman also said the city should revisit that decision.

• The St. Albert Gazette has been denied access to information about whether the Alberta city hands out radar tickets for drivers going less than 10 km/h over the speed limit. According to the newspaper, the city believes the disclosure of that information would be “harmful to law enforcement.”

• The Georgia Straight reports the Coalition of Progressive Electors, a Vancouver civic party, “accepted $12,500 in combined campaign contributions from a commercial real-estate company and left those amounts off the list of donations it released ahead of the November 15 election.” The coalition has since apologized for that lack of disclosure.

• The City of Oshawa is considering a staff recommendation to discontinue publication of a monthly report outlining payroll and vendor payments, according to the Oshawa Express. The newspaper also reports the city’s mayor frustrated a proposal to let the public know when Oshawa awards sole-sourced contracts.

• A Manning Foundation for Democratic Education report states “25% of Calgary City Council’s time is spent in secret and closed the public, up from 18.5% for the previous term.”

• Saskatoon residents will now know how their city councillors are voting. In the past, councillors needed to make a formal request for those votes to be written down. But now all of them will be recorded thanks to a motion made by local politician Randy Donauer.

• The Montreal Gazette reports the city is “on the hunt for an information-technology company that can help it create a new, searchable database of municipal contracts.”

• Kimberly Mayor Don McCormick hopes his new monthly brown bag lunches with the public will “eliminate the need for some of the Freedom of Information requests” his city has been dealing with, according to the city’s local newspaper.

• The Times & Transcript reports that, during a December 15 meeting, Moncton city councillors discussed an interim report on their efforts to “enhance democracy.” And, according to CBC News, information technology business owner Andrew MacKinnon made a presentation during the same meeting encouraging the city to open up its data.

• Summerside is looking to form an open government committee and a transparency committee. The Prince Edward Island city’s local newspaper reports the later committee will “study, review and make recommendations to council on ways to achieve more openness, accountability and transparency, and will consist of the city’s chief administrative officer, two councillors and two members of the public.”

• Maple Ridge is establishing a citizen’s committee on open government to develop recommendations for how the British Columbia city “can be more responsive and transparent to residents and other stakeholders.” According to the Maple Ridge News, “Once it starts to work, it will have a three-month time limit to bring recommendations.”

• The Flamborough Review reports Hamilton “staff and politicians will begin the interviewing process” for the Ontario city’s first combined lobbyist registrar and integrity commissioner “starting next February or March.”

• In a letter published in the Stoney Creek News, a Hamilton resident writes that the city’s freedom of information request process “required me to download and fill out a paper form, write a cheque to the city for $5, put a stamp on an envelope and mail it all to city hall. Much time and effort could be saved if this Freedom of Information transaction could have taken place online, like other electronic services available to residents, like dog tags.”

• In a letter published in the Hamilton Spectator, retired civic employee Shekar Chandrasekhar writes, “One can not get blood from a stone. Likewise, obtaining information from police services is next to impossible even though it is completely funded by the citizens of Hamilton.”

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