Category Archives: Media

THE MERIT OF ASKING AGGRESSIVE QUESTIONS

CNN’S Jim Acosta confronts President Donald Trump. (Image by CNN)

Following the news that the Trump administration revoked Jim Acosta’s White House press pass, some journalists have criticized the CNN correspondent for his argumentative questioning of the president during a news conference earlier this month. But, as one of the most iconic moments in Canadian news media history demonstrates, such questioning can also be as revealing as it is controversial. And it may now be more important than ever.

Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride – who are faculty members with the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school – have been among Acosta’s most high-profile journalistic critics. In a commentary that described the CNN correspondent’s actions as not representing “the best of journalism,” McBride and Tompkins scolded him for making statements rather than asking questions during that news conference.1Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride, “CNN’s Jim Acosta’s Actions to Trump Don’t Represent the Best of Journalism,” Poynter News, November 8, 2018, https://www.poynter.org/news/cnns-jim-acostas-actions-trump-dont-represent-best-journalism.

The two specific statements they cited were “Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls” and “They are hundreds of miles away, that’s not an invasion.”2Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride, “CNN’s Jim Acosta’s Actions to Trump Don’t Represent the Best of Journalism,” Poynter News, November 8, 2018, https://www.poynter.org/news/cnns-jim-acostas-actions-trump-dont-represent-best-journalism. McBride and Tompkins then concluded their commentary by advising journalists to “ask tough question, avoid making statements or arguing during a press event and report the news, don’t become the news.”3Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride, “CNN’s Jim Acosta’s Actions to Trump Don’t Represent the Best of Journalism,” Poynter News, November 8, 2018, https://www.poynter.org/news/cnns-jim-acostas-actions-trump-dont-represent-best-journalism.

Leaving aside the fact that Trump’s own interruptions may have stopped Acosta from turning those statements into questions, McBride and Tompkins’ criticism is reminiscent of what happened when Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reporter Tim Ralfe took a similar approach with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau during the country’s October Crisis of 1970.

That crisis began when members of the Front de Libération du Québec independence movement kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross and Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, the later of whom was eventually murdered. The federal government called in troops to protect federal officials and diplomats in Ottawa. And it was against this backdrop that Ralfe, along with CTV reporter Peter Reilly, confronted Trudeau.

According to the Vancouver Sun, Trudeau’s interview with the two reporters happened “after he had ducked out a side exit of the (House of) Commons to avoid the great crush of newsmen” gathered there.4Wayne MacDonald, “PM Vows No Limit in Terror Fight: ‘Week-Kneed Bleeding Hearts’ Flayed,” Sun (Vancouver), October 14, 1970.

Ralfe began with a somewhat haphazard question: “Sir, what is it with all these men with guns around here?” But his interview also included statements such as “I’m worried about living in a town that’s full of people with guns running around in it” and argumentative questions such as “Doesn’t it worry you having a town that you’ve got to have to resort to this kind of thing?”

He even told Trudeau he wanted to “live in a society that is free and democratic, which means that you don’t have people running around with guns in it. And one of the things I have to give up for that choice is the fact people like you may be kidnapped” – with a seeming emphasis on the word you.

Then, after all of Ralfe’s poking and prodding about whether he was turning Canada into a police state with his response to the FLQ, Trudeau finally said this: “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don’t like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it’s more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don’t like the looks of…”

An apparently indignant Ralfe interrupted and asked, “At any cost? At any cost? How far would you go into that? How far would you extend that?” To which Trudeau replied, “Well, just watch me.”

Ottawa Citizen television columnist Frank Penn reported “the bulk of this lively and illuminating interview apparently wound up on the CBC newsroom floor.”5Frank Penn, “CBC Blows Big One,” Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1970. But newspapers across the country picked up those pieces and put them on their front pages underneath headlines such as “Weak-Kneed Bleeding Hearts Hit”6Arthur Blakely, “‘Weak-Kneed Bleeding Hearts’ Hit: An Angry Trudeau is Interviewed,” Gazette (Montreal), October 14, 1970 and “PM Vows No Limit in Terrorist Fight.”7Wayne MacDonald, “PM Vows No Limit in Terror Fight: ‘Week-Kneed Bleeding Hearts’ Flayed,” Sun (Vancouver), October 14, 1970. Many even published a full transcript of the confrontation. CTV also aired the interview in its entirety.8Scott Macrae, “Eight Lost Minutes: Why?” Vancouver Sun, March 19, 1976.

Later, Ralfe, who died of heart attack in 2000, would reveal his CBC superiors thought he had been rude to Trudeau and that he was worried he would be fired. “We know you’re under pressure and you’re tired, but you shouldn’t have treated the prime minister that way,” he recalled his bosses saying.9Scott Macrae, “Eight Lost Minutes: Why?” Vancouver Sun, March 19, 1976. In fact, Peter Trueman, who was the executive producer for CBC’s National News in October 1970, admitted, “My first reaction was to fire off a telex to Ottawa giving Ralfe shit for disputing the PM,” something Trueman later regretted.10Scott Macrae, “Eight Lost Minutes: Why?” Vancouver Sun, March 19, 1976.

However, Ralfe’s supposed rudeness, as well as his argumentative questioning and statements, forced the prime minister to reveal himself in a way that more restrained questioning hadn’t. As a result, Trudeau’s just-watch-me-phrase has come to symbolize, in the words of the Canadian Press, the prime minister’s “transition from flower-power leader to Machiavellian overlord,”11The Canadian Press, “Just Watch Me,” Daily News (Nanaimo), September 30, 2000. with a YouTube clip of the exchange having been viewed more than 400,000 times.

It’s far too early to tell whether Acosta’s confrontation with Trump will be remembered the same way. However, the president’s response to the CNN correspondent has been similarly revealing. Not only did the Trump administration revoke Acosta’s press credentials (which a court ruling as temporarily restored),12Michael M. Grynbaum and Emily Baumgaertner, “CNN’s Jim Acosta Returns to the White House After Judge’s Ruling,” New York Times, November 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/business/media/cnn-acosta-trump.html. but White House press secretary Sarah Sanders shared a video that appears to have been doctored so Acosta appears to behave aggressively toward an intern who attempted to take a microphone away from him.13The Associated Press, “Expert: Acosta Video Distributed by White House Was Doctored,” New York Times, November 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/11/08/arts/ap-us-trump-media.html.

Such revelations are important because many elected and unelected officials seem increasingly willing to refuse to answer reporters’ questions or lie when answering them. And if Acosta’s actions end up revealing a truth to the public that would not have otherwise been revealed, just like Ralfe he will have done his ultimate job as a journalist – even if some think he should have been less argumentative.

References

1, 2, 3 Al Tompkins and Kelly McBride, “CNN’s Jim Acosta’s Actions to Trump Don’t Represent the Best of Journalism,” Poynter News, November 8, 2018, https://www.poynter.org/news/cnns-jim-acostas-actions-trump-dont-represent-best-journalism.
4, 7 Wayne MacDonald, “PM Vows No Limit in Terror Fight: ‘Week-Kneed Bleeding Hearts’ Flayed,” Sun (Vancouver), October 14, 1970.
5 Frank Penn, “CBC Blows Big One,” Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1970.
6 Arthur Blakely, “‘Weak-Kneed Bleeding Hearts’ Hit: An Angry Trudeau is Interviewed,” Gazette (Montreal), October 14, 1970
8, 9, 10 Scott Macrae, “Eight Lost Minutes: Why?” Vancouver Sun, March 19, 1976.
11 The Canadian Press, “Just Watch Me,” Daily News (Nanaimo), September 30, 2000.
12 Michael M. Grynbaum and Emily Baumgaertner, “CNN’s Jim Acosta Returns to the White House After Judge’s Ruling,” New York Times, November 16, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/business/media/cnn-acosta-trump.html.
13 The Associated Press, “Expert: Acosta Video Distributed by White House Was Doctored,” New York Times, November 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/11/08/arts/ap-us-trump-media.html.

CLIMATE CHANGE QUESTIONS UNASKED IN CANADA

California governor Jerry Brown signs a bill setting a 100 percent clean electricity goal for the state. (Photograph courtesy of the Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.)

As a journalism professor, I teach my first and second year students that one of the easiest means of breaking news is to find a problem a foreign government is acting on and then ask what their own government is or isn’t doing about the same problem.

In newsrooms, this would be called localizing a story.

That’s why I’m disappointed that most of Canada’s mainstream news media don’t seem to have used recent climate change announcements by United Nations secretary-general António Guterres and California governor Jerry Brown to hold our own governments to account on that issue.

On September 10, Guterres warned, “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us” – news that was worthy enough to be teased on the front page of the New York Times, below the fold.

The United Nations secretary-general’s climate change warning was important enough to make the front page of the New York Times. (Image courtesy of the New York Times)

That warning comes after a summer of scorching world temperatures, a heat wave that caused dozens of deaths in Quebec and devastating wildfires in British Columbia – all of which have been attributed to climate change. 

On the same day Guterres made his statement, Brown signed a bill and issued an executive order that commits the state to achieving carbon neutrality and 100 percent clean electricity by 2045 – something Vox described as “history’s most ambitious climate target,” although there are others who question whether the California governor is doing enough for the environment.

Both announcements were made just prior to the beginning of the Global Climate Action Summit, which took place in San Francisco.

But, when I searched Canadian Newsstream – a database that includes 582 news outlets – this morning,1I used the following terms: (California AND “climate change”), (“United Nations” AND “climate change”), “Antonio Guterres” and “Jerry Brown.” the coverage of that news in the Canadian  English-language mainstream news media appears to have been sparse. According to that database:

  • the Canadian Press broadcast an audio story reporting on Guterres’s warning;
  • the Prince George Citizen published an Associated Press story about that warning;
  • the Hamilton Spectator published an Associated Press story which mentioned that warning; and
  • the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal published an Associated Press story about Brown’s climate change targets.

In addition, a Google search shows the National Post carried Associated Press stories about Brown and Guterres’s announcements.

Castanet.net, CTV, the Prince George Citizen, SooToday.com and the Toronto Star also carried the same Associated Press story about Brown’s announcement.

However, I could find no mainstream stories in Canadian Newsstream that localized those developments. Nor could I find any such stories on Google.

As Canadian journalists, I think we must do better than this.

Our role is to provide the public with the information they need to make the rationale, empathetic decisions that are supposed to be the foundation of democratic governance.

That’s why the questions we ask and don’t ask matter.

And if we aren’t asking the questions we should about climate change, the existential threat of our time, we’re contributing to that problem.

References

1 I used the following terms: (California AND “climate change”), (“United Nations” AND “climate change”), “Antonio Guterres” and “Jerry Brown.”

THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF TRUDEAU

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising a "fair and open government." But that openness could a lot like what a NDP MP proposed half-a-century ago. (Graphic by Liberal Party of Canada)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising a “fair and open government.” But that openness could a lot like what a NDP MP proposed half-a-century ago. (Graphic by Liberal Party of Canada)

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is serious about making government information “open by default,” he’ll have to deal with the same arguments that helped scuttle Canada’s first right-to-know bill a half-century ago.

Prior to the recent election, Trudeau unsuccessfully tried to demonstrate his commitment to that principle by introducing a private member’s bill entitled the Transparency Act.

That bill, which was defeated on second reading, would have made it somewhat easier to ask for government records and get more of them.

But it wouldn’t have closed the some of the biggest loopholes in the Access to Information Act, which let the government keep its most informative and important records secret.

That made Trudeau’s commitment to “raise the bar on openness and transparency in government” questionable.

Nevertheless, the prime minister repeated that commitment following last week’s swearing-in ceremony.

So let’s give him the benefit of the doubt I didn’t during the campaign and assume his post-election effort to make information “open by default” will actually do just that.

Such an effort would have to allow the public to access all sorts of records that are usually under lock and key, including, for example, advice and recommendations developed for the government, as well as accounts of deliberations involving government officials.

In some ways, such a law wouldn’t be dissimilar to the one former Vancouver Sun columnist and NDP MP Barry Mather proposed in April 1965 – two months after United States Senator Edward Long introduced the bill that would lead to that country’s Freedom of Information Act.

Mather’s legislation would have required government to make any information or records “concerning its doing available to any person at his request in reasonable manner and time,” with the Exchequer Court of Canada (the predecessor to the Federal Court of Canada) adjudicating that access.

In the words of the Globe and Mail, exceptions would have been made for “matters of national security, matters exempted by statute from disclosure, trade secrets, commercial information obtained from private persons and subjects of private interest ‘to the degree that the right to personal privacy excludes the public interest.'”

But that’s a short shadow compared to the long darkness of the Access to Information Act, which includes 75 separate exemptions and exclusions.

The Globe and Mail wrote favourably about Mather’s bill, stating it would do much to open the government’s “many closed doors and keep the public informed about what is, after all, its own business.” As a result, the newspaper advised the ruling Liberals to put their “blessing” on the bill and “ensure its passage.”

The Liberals didn’t heed that advice. And, when the bill made it to second reading three years later, after being re-introduced by Mather, two of the party’s MPs, Yves Forest and Colin Gibson, seemed to explain why.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Forest, the then-parliamentary secretary to the president of the privy council, said that bill did not “give enough important to the generally accepted principle” of administrative secrecy. According to Forest, that principle allows:

…complete freedom of expression and also of communication between the members of the administration at various levels, and particularly from lower to senior officials. In my opinion, the contrary could reduce the efficiency of our whole administrative system as we know it.

In other words, Gibson said, “if official files are opened to the public scrutiny too much administration caution will result, which will seriously inhibit the effective functioning of civil servants. No one likes to work with someone leaning over his shoulder reading what he is writing.”

So it’s not surprising that the Access to Information Act, which was introduced by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government in 1980, appears to have been drafted to guard against what Gibson called “eavesdropping and spying,” helping legally fortify the anachronistic notion that political decision-making must happen in private.

But what is surprising is how much purchase that notion still has in Canada.

In response to the Transparency Act’s proposal to make records in ministerial offices subject to access requests, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former communications director Andrew MacDougall argued that change would cause politicians and their staffers to “pull their punches” when discussing and debating public policy:

Think of all the internecine battles that are part and parcel of any office. Think of the snide comments about your colleagues often said in frustration. Now picture it on a front page. Think that would change your behaviour — or drive it further underground? Would that make your company perform better, or worse?

Nor is MacDougall the only one making such arguments. For example, two years ago, the Globe and Mail opposed proposals from two information commissioners that would have required government officials to document their decision-making.

The reason: “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 principle, that may seem reasonable to many Canadians. But, in practice, it means that government officials only have to disclose what they want to disclose to us about their decision-making – a behaviour that’s too often tolerated and accommodated by the Access to Information Act.

Such secrecy was politically beneficial to Harper, as it surely could be to his successor Trudeau. So it remains to be seen whether Trudeau will resist the temptation to cultivate rather than uproot that secrecy.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Toronto Star has paraphrased newly-appointed Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains as saying that government “scientists are free to speak to the media about their work.”

• “Tens of thousands of records amassed during various stages of the settlement process with the survivors of Indian residential schools” have begun being released to the public, according to the Global and Mail. The newspaper reports those documents will shed “further light on a long and often brutal attempt by the government at forced assimilation.”

• The Toronto Star reports, “Restoring the long-form census will be among the first acts of the new Liberal government.”

• Writing in the Hill Times, long-time right-to-know advocate Ken Rubin writes that Trudeau must act quickly to introduce transparency legislation “as majority governments become more defensive and secretive over time.”

• The Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt makes three modest suggestions to improve the federal government’s relationship with the media: “let ministers speak,” give a “daily media briefing” and don’t “go over the heads of reporters with coverage complaints and straight to their bosses or head offices.”

• In an op-ed published in the Toronto Star, William Kowalski — a member of PEN Canada’s Canadian Issues Committee — writes that, “If freedom of expression in Canada were a medical patient, it would be dangerously close to needing life support. With Canada’s new government assuming its place, now is the time to make good on the promise of an open, more transparent relationship between the government of Canada and its citizens.”

• Global News’s Rebecca Lindell tweets that the Correctional Service of Canada has asked for a three year extension to an access request relating to fentanyl deaths. (hat tip: Jordan Press)

• The Green Party of Canada has refused to say how much money it was paying MP Bruce Hyer to be its deputy leader, claiming it’s private information.

• The raw data from Newspapers Canada’s 2015 freedom of information audit is now available.

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The Globe and Mail reports British Columbia’s former information commissioner David Loukidelis will be paid $50,000 to tell the provincial government how to implement the recommendations in a “stinging report that said officials — including those in the premier’s office — routinely deleted information.”

According to 24 hours Vancouver, NDP MLA Carole James has alleged provincial government lawyers attempted to “impede” the release of that report, which was penned by the province’s current information commissioner Elizabeth Denham.

• Loukidelis is scheduled to complete his work before Dec. 15. But CKNW reports the family of a Highway of Tears victim worries that means his advise may “get lost in the days leading up to Christmas.” Emails about the Highway of Tears were among those deleted by the government.

• The Vancouver Courier’s Geoff Olson writes that “contravening Freedom of Information laws isn’t a glitch in the provincial government’s doings, it’s a feature.”

• Speaking of which, B.C. MLA Vicki Huntington’s reports that when freedom of information requests were filed on the decision to replace the Massey Tunnel with a bridge, each of them received a “no records reply.”

• In response, according to the Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer, “Transportation Minister Todd Stone confirmed the sought-after business plan and cost-benefit analysis for the Massey replacement remains a work in progress. Due for release soon, he assured me.”

• Nevertheless, according to the Times Colonist, it’s both “ludicrous” and “insulting” to It’s ludicrous to say that no records exist of a project that will cost an estimated $3 billion. (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• CBC News reports, “The backlog for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to review applications is currently two years. That means if a government department refuses a request for information, it will be two years before the appeal is even heard.”

• The Alberta government has, according to Global News, expanded its sunshine list to disclosure the salaries for “all employees of public sector bodies, including Alberta Health Services and post-secondary institution.”

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “The City of Saint John has taken an important step toward greater transparency and accountability by launching an open data portal,” according to the Telegraph-Journal.

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 illness.

THE HIGH PRICE OF SECRECY

British Columbians are spending millions to make sure they can't find out what their elected officials are doing.

British Columbians are spending millions to make sure they can’t find out what their elected officials are doing. (Photograph by Shutterstock.com)

The British Columbia government’s continued efforts to prevent the public from seeing its paperwork is costing millions of dollars each year.

The public is supposed to be able to access that paperwork using the province’s freedom of information law, allowing them to make “informed judgments about government policy” in the words of former New Democrat attorney general Colin Gablemann.

But the 53 exceptions or loopholes in that law, which Gablemann introduced 23 years ago, can make it extremely easy for the government to keep the public uninformed or misinformed.

For example, one of those loopholes allows the government to refuse access to any advice or recommendations about those policies. And another makes most of what happens in cabinet inaccessible, even though that’s where many policy decisions are made.

As a result, the government doesn’t just need bureaucrats to find records requested under its freedom of information law. It needs bureaucrats to apply those loopholes. It needs, in other words, censors.

According to the ministry where those bureaucrats work, the price of all that finding and censoring in fiscal 2014/15 averaged $2,358 per request, for a total cost of $19.7 million. That means the most prolific requesters can easily run up bills totalling $100,000 or more in their pursuit of government records and, often accountability.

I certainly must have when I was covering provincial politics and filing over a hundred requests each year. After all, thanks to the muzzling of the bureaucracy, those requests (even with their limitations) are one of the few means reporters have of finding out what the government doesn’t want you to find out.

That’s also why freelancer Bob Mackin, who has written for publications such as The Tyee, Business in Vancouver and the Vancouver Courier, filed 1,913 freedom of information requests in the almost five years between Jan. 1, 2009 and Sept. 22, 2014.

Those requests, which made up 40 percent of the total filed by the media during that time period, resulted in big stories, small stories and often times no story at all – the later being a common experience for reporters using freedom of information laws.

Among Mackin’s biggest stories were those that revealed the government:

• feared a riot if the Vancouver Canucks lost game seven of the Stanley Cup finals;

• considered privatizing its liquor stores;

• used 2010 Winter Olympic advertisements to promote Premier Gordon Campbell; and

• wanted to invest in a Victoria condominium development with “unresolved” financial issues.

According to a freedom of information request filed by a private individual and sent to me by Mackin, the government claims the reporter’s requests costed $3.85 million to respond to.

But that price, which was calculated by just dividing the cost of all requests responded to between Jan. 1, 2009 and Sept. 22, 2014 with the total number Mackin filed, was likely unnecessary.

By closing some of the bigger loopholes in its records access law, the government wouldn’t need so many censors to read and then blank-out information before it’s released to individuals such as Mackin. And by releasing more records without requiring costly access requests, the government could further reduce its expenses.

In fact, releasing more records without requests is something British Columbia’s information and privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham and her predecessors have repeatedly recommended.

For example, in a 2013 investigation report, Denham advised government to routinely publish 18 different kinds of information, ranging from government calendars, contracts and audits to public opinion polls, statistical surveys and economic forecasts.

But, despite an initial limited and now utterly discredited initiative to make her government more open, Premier Christy Clark hasn’t heeded that advice.

And, as a result, British Columbians are continuing to pay to keep themselves in the dark.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Calgary Herald reports the Supreme Court of Canada will “hear a case that Alberta’s access czar says could impact her office’s ability to provide effective oversight when organizations refuse to release records requested under the province’s freedom of information law.” (hat tip: Charles Rusnell)

• The Guelph Mercury’s editorial board writes, “We hope the incoming [federal Liberal] regime demonstrates a will to enhance transparency.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The Toronto Star’s public editor Kathy English hopes incoming prime minister Justin Trudeau’s “call for ‘sunny ways’ does indeed shine much-needed light on Canada’s government.”

• Writing in the Hill Times, long-time freedom of information advocate Ken Rubin states Trudeau must “act quickly to introduce transparency legislation as majority governments become more defensive and secretive over time. So far though, Trudeau has announced as his first legislative priorities a law to give income ‘relief’ to middle class earners and an amended anti-terror Bill C-51.”

• In an op-ed published in the Chronicle-Herald, University of King’s College journalism professor Fred Vallance-Jone and freelancer Emily Kitagawa states there is “reason for skepticism” about the federal Liberals promise to reform the Access to Information Act.

• The Winnipeg Free Press’s editorial board writes it won’t be surprised if the federal Liberals fail to live up to their lofty promise to be open and accountable. “It is, after all, just part of tradition in this country.”

• Science journalist Margaret Munro writes that even a “modest improvement” in the federal government’s communication with the media will be welcome. “But a return to more open government will require not only new policy, but also a new mindset in the bureaucracy the Conservatives have left behind.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman writes, “It is crucial that this trend of limiting media access be reversed. Journalists at the very least act as a proxy for citizens; we have access – or should – to those in power. In order to hold governments to account, reporters require access to those governments. This is how journalists can expose bad behaviour – systemic or individual (the senate scandal, Rob Ford) – and effect change. When journalists are cut off, society suffers.”

• “Restoring the mandatory long-form census in time for the 2016 survey is doable,” according to two former chief statisticians of Statistics Canada who spoke to the Globe and Mail.

• Two people working on Kennedy Stewart’s campaign asked Global BC reporter Catherine Urquhart and her cameraman to leave the NDP MP’s office on election night, reports Burnaby Now.

• CBC News reports air passenger rights advocate Gabor Lukas is “calling on the Transportation Safety Board to release more information about a Porter Airlines flight that made an emergency landing in Sydney [N.S.] earlier this week.”

• The Calgary Herald’s Darcy Henton tweets that Alberta’s environment ministry wants $1,423 for records about what options it considered before deciding to repair the Kananaskis Country Golf Course. (hat tip: Erika Stark)

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• Last month, British Columbia’s information commissioner released a investigation report that found staff in Premier Christy Clark’s government “delete emails response to access to information requests,” “wilfully or negligently” failed to produce records responsive to those requests and failed to “keep any sent emails, irrespective of the topic.” In response, Clark has ordered her cabinet minister and all political staff to save their email.

• Following the release of that report, columnists and editorial boards were critical of what BC NDP Opposition leader John Horgan called a culture of deception, deceit and “delete, delete, delete” in the Clark administration. Among them were the Vancouver Sun, the Times Colonist, the Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer, the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason, the National Post’s Brian Hutchison, the Province’s Michael Smyth, The Tyee’s Paul Willcocks, the North Shore NewsKamloops This Week, the Peace Arch News and the Cowichan Valley Citizen’s Andrea Rondeau.

• In an open letter to Clark, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs writes that it is “shocked, alarmed and deeply offended” that records about the Highway of Tears were among those deleted by the Clark administration.

• The Times Colonist reports the head of the province’s public service also “apparently never kept any records related to the firing of eight drug researchers during the two-year period when the provincial government was under heavy fire for its handling of the case.”

• In the wake of these revelations, the Georgia Straight reports the BC NDP is “collecting a growing body of evidence that proves a Liberal government practice of deleting emails was ‘systemic’ and explicitly for the purpose of preventing the release of information to the public.”

• The Times Colonist’s Les Leyne reports British Columbia’s information commissioner is swamped with complaints about the handling of access requests by the province’s government.

• In an interview with CKNW’s Jon McComb, the minister responsible for introducing British Columbia’s freedom of information law Colin Gabelmann speaks about the history of that legislation.

• Newfoundland and Labrador’s information commissioner has ordered that province’s government to release records about how much an external consultant charges for information technology work.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• CBC News reports a retired New Brunswick high school teacher is “fighting what he calls ‘ridiculous’ secrecy at one of the province’s school districts for failing to disclose information over the naming of a new school in Woodstock.”

• The Ubyssey reports that lack of answer around University of British Columbia president Arvid Gupta’s resignation has resulted in a “deluge” of freedom of information requests at the post-secondary institution.

• “How much the District of Muskoka [Ont.] is setting aside for capital projects could become shrouded in secrecy to prevent skewed bids from contractor,” according to the Bracebridge Examiner.

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 cancelled last week due to illness.

THE WEEK CANADIAN JOURNALISM WAS BETRAYED

The National Post's front page endorsement of Conservatives Leader Stephen Harper could have troubling consequences for its employees, as well as its bottom line. (Graphic by National Post)

The National Post’s front page endorsement of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper could have troubling consequences for its employees, as well as its bottom line. (Graphic by National Post)

By endorsing the Conservatives for another term in government, some of Canada’s biggest dailies have betrayed both democracy and themselves.

Last week, papers owned by Postmedia Network Inc., the country’s largest English-language daily newspaper publisher, ran editorials with headlines such as “Conservatives are the most prudent choice,” “Let’s keep Harper’s steady hand on the helm” and “No change is best.”

Those papers were joined by the Globe and Mail, which endorsed the Tories but not Stephen Harper – seemingly and improbably suggesting his party colleagues weren’t, at the very least, responsible for enabling their leader’s baser decisions.

In the main, the pith of those newspapers’ contestable argument is that, according the Vancouver Sun, “The Harper government has kept a steady hand on the economic rudder” and, as such, is “best able to maintain a stable and healthy economy.”

Yet at least some of those editorials also affirmed the Conservative’s slide into crypto-despotism.

For example, the Montreal Gazette wrote that the party has “demonstrated high-handed disrespect for Parliament and the democratic process on occasion.” Meanwhile, the Ottawa Citizen was even more fulsome, stating Harper has:

…picked political fights with major pillars of our democratic system – Elections Canada, the judiciary, officers of parliament – for no obvious reason apart from the fact that they appear to stand in his way. Under his watch there were unreasonably high levels of moral and even criminal corruption among some of those closest to him. He has indulged his MPs in their quest to make a mockery of Question Period.

That means, in their endorsements, those papers weren’t just choosing between left and right. They were choosing between democracy and stability. And, in the end, they choose what they see as stability.

In a strange way, it was a very Canadian decision.

Our nation was born in the lukewarm cauldron of colonial deference rather than revolution, with its founding document declaiming the importance of peace, order and good governance.

That secular trinity of stability – which contrasts sharply with the American commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – is exemplified by our secretive, winner-take-all, Father Knows Best political system and is part of our often unacknowledged political values.

For example, in 2014, 24 percent of Canadian surveyed by AmericasBarometer said it would be justifiable for the prime minister to govern without Parliament if the country was facing very difficult times.

Among the other countries polled in the western hemisphere, only respondents in Haiti, Peru and Paraguay were more supportive of such a coup.

Similarly, just 45 percent of Canadians approve of people participating in legal demonstrations – 10 percentage points lower than respondents in the United States.

Nevertheless, it was still jarring to see newspapers favour a party that has shown such disdain and disregard for democracy because, in its absence, journalism is put in peril.

Without the twin freedoms of expression and information associated with that political system, the power of reporters to challenge the decisions and actions of those they cover is crippled.

Those freedoms have always been less than absolute in Canada – sometimes to serve the public interest and too often to serve the private interests of the powerful.

But the Conservatives, like the Liberals when they were in government, have further attenuated them, something the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders decried in a statement released late last week.

That attenuation deepens Canada’s democratic deficit, and possibly the financial deficits of its already flagging newspapers.

After all, who will pay to read those publications if the journalists who write for them become more and more frustrated in their ability to report on what the government doesn’t want the public to know about?

Yet neither Postmedia nor the Globe and Mail seem to have recognized that four more years of the Conservatives might be bad news for them – regardless of what it would mean for the rest of Canada.

It would be easy to blame the owners and managers of those newspapers for this lack of foresight. But, with a few notable exceptions, too many reporters in this election were just as negligent in covering issues such as government secrecy and accountability.

That collective failure brings into relief the question of how much responsibility journalists and their employers feel they have to protect the freedoms they exercise on behalf of the public. And during this campaign, in newsrooms across the country, the answer, tragically, appears to have been very little.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• University of King’s College journalism professor Fred Vallance-Jones’s latest annual freedom of information audit has been released by Newspapers Canada. That audit “ tells the story not only of Newfoundland and Labrador’s success and Ottawa’s failure, but also of foot-dragging by police forces, and widespread resistance at all levels of government to releasing computer data in formats useful in the digital age.”

• Canadian Journalists for Free Expression has released a report card grading the four major political parties for their stances on critical free expression issues.

• A coalition of 22 civil society groups concerned about the disrepair of Canada’s Access to Information Act has distributed a statement noting “the NDP and Liberal parties have included commitments in their platforms to improve the Act. Unfortunately, the Conservative Party did not see fit to even mention access to information in its platform.”

• CBC News’s Neil Macdonald argues that the federal government is simply prosecuting embarrassment by calling in the RCMP to investigate leaks at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

• “Four years after he first asked Health Canada for all the information it had on a popular morning sickness drug, Toronto doctor Nav Persaud finally has the documents,” reports the Toronto Star. “But he cannot tell his patients or any other Canadians what’s in them” because of a confidentiality agreement he had to sign with the federal regulator.

• “Thousands of pages of correspondence and briefing notes on the federal government’s anti-terror Bill C-51 are so secret the government won’t disclose its reasons for censoring them,” according to Global News.

• “Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau scolded some of his own supporters Thursday after a journalist’s question on the resignation of his campaign co-chair elicited groans,” reports the Huffington Post.

• “Transport Canada is not releasing the results of its last two inspections of the Ambassador Bridge,” reports CBC News. (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• CBC News takes a look at the back-and-forth debate over cameras in the courts. (hat tip: Ian Bron)

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• “Despite several high-profile privacy breaches and controversies over the destruction of government documents, MLAs studying changes to B.C.’s Freedom of Information legislation have had to cancel public meetings due to lack of interest in the topic,” reports the Vancouver Sun.

• IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis argues that cancellation may have had less to do with a lack of interest and more to do with the fact those meetings were announced during a federal election campaign, on the Friday before the Thanksgiving Day long weekend.

• The Telegraph-Journal opines that the New Brunswick government’s “treatment of a series of independent legislative officers shows a disturbing pattern — a growing cavalier attitude toward these important watchdog roles.” That treatment includes ignoring the province’s information commissioner.

• The Times-Transcript’s Norbert Cunningham writes that the Atcon fiasco demonstrates “why taxpayers should demand far more acountability from provincial governments, They all provide grants, subsidies, and loans in efforts to spur economic development. Have we ever seen a full accounting of outcomes? We hear positive announcements and expectations. Politicians boast when recipients prosper, but run for cover if they fail. We get an overall accounting of spending and losses, but few details.”

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

LATE NDP ANTI-SECRECY PROMISES LEAVE QUESTIONS

The cover of the NDP's campaign platform promises that party leader Tom Mulcair is "Ready for Ch" But what kind of "Ch" will the Mulcair make to the country's records access law? (Photograph by NDP)

The cover of the NDP’s campaign platform declares that Canada is “Ready for Ch.” But what kind of “Ch” would party leader Tom Mulcair make to one of the country’s most important anti-secrecy laws? (Photograph by NDP)

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER? Last month, the Toronto Star reported the NDP would have more to say on freedom of information reform before Election Day.

Twenty-eight days later (and just ten days before Canadians go to the polls) the party has finally opened its mouth after having spent the past nine years criticizing the Conservative government’s secrecy.

As part of its election platform, the NDP has promised six bullet points worth of fixes to the Access to Information Act — the long-broken law that is supposed to allow the people and the press to obtain unreleased government records but too often doesn’t.

Those proposals, totalling 116 words, match or surpass many of those already advanced by the Liberals.

Both parties promise to eliminate all access to information fees except the $5 cost to file a request.

Both parties promise to give the information commissioner the power to order the release of government records.

And both parties promise to make the administration of Parliament, the prime minister’s office and minister’s offices subject to the Access to Information Act.

The NDP isn’t committing to review the Act every five years or require government data and information to be available in “formats that are modern and easy to use,” as promised in the Liberal platform.

Nor does it make the so far empty promise of making government information “open by default” — which, according to commissioner Suzanne Legault, is the way that law is already written.

But, unlike the Liberals, the NDP would require public officials to document their action and decisions.

It would make claims of cabinet confidentiality subject to review by the commissioner.

And it would give access to information users a means of forcing the government to release information that’s in the “public interest.”

That appears encouraging.

But the effectiveness of that mechanism will depend on how the NDP defines the “public interest.”

After all, the public interest override in British Columbia’s freedom of information law is so narrowly defined that it’s been almost useless.

Similarly, the NDP has promised to “start implementing the Commissioner’s recommendations to strengthen and modernize the Act.”

But does that mean all of those recommendations, including proposed reforms to the exclusions and exemptions in the Act — loopholes that our public officials use and abuse to hide even the most basic information about their decisions from Canadians?

I’ve emailed Mulcair’s press secretary George Smith asking for answers to those questions with a deadline of Wednesday.

I’ll let you know if I get an answer.

OPEN AND SHUT The NDP’s proposed Access to Information Act reforms are part of the party’s  commitment to lead a “transparent government” that’s more open and accountable than the Harper administration. But some of the party’s dealings with journalists during the election campaign could give cause to doubt that claim.

On Saturday, the Globe and Mail published a 8,927-word profile of Tom Mulcair after “all efforts” to interview him over a two-month period failed. According to the newspaper:

E-mail and in-person requests made to various people, from the chief press officer and chief of staff to the press secretary and campaign manager, led nowhere. Eventually, our inquiries were sent down the chain of command, and landed with a junior press officer, who did not return calls. Ten weeks after our initial request, and shortly before going to press, The Globe and Mail was offered a telephone interview – an offer we declined due to the imminent publication date. That prompted a senior aide to say that a face-to-face interview could be arranged; this request was rejected for the same reason.

That wouldn’t be so troubling if Mulcair hadn’t also refused to take questions during his campaign launch, with the Toronto Star noting he was the only leader not to do so:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, notorious for how rare he is available to media, took five questions from reporters outside Rideau Hall Sunday morning. Those questions had conditions, though: the questions were restricted to those media outlets that have agreed to go on tour with the Conservatives, at a cost of $12,500 a week. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who launched his campaign in Vancouver several hours after the other two, was prepared to answer more questions than the seven reporters there had for him.

This could just be incompetence on the part of Mulcair’s campaign staff. Goodness knows there’s enough reason to believe that. But it could also be a sign that a NDP government would only be open and accountable on its own terms.

TOTALLY TRANSPARENT National Newswatch’s Don Lenihan continued overstating the Liberal’s government transparency platform plank last week, writing that party leader Justin Trudeau “has a long list of Open Government reforms.” For the record, that list is comprised of five bullet points and totals 128 words.

BY THE NUMBERS Last week, I noted that reporters are estimated to have filed over ten times more freedom of information requests with British Columbia government ministries per 100,000 people living in that province than they did in Alberta. But how does the rest of the provinces outside Quebec stack up? Well, only four other provinces track the data needed to make that comparison. Nevertheless, the numbers we do have make for interesting reading:

Ontario (calendar 2012)

215 media requests

1.9 percent of all requests

1.6 requests per 100,000

Alberta (fiscal 2012/13)

110 media requests

4.6 percent of all requests

2.8 requests per 100,000

Nova Scotia (fiscal 2012/13)

73 media requests

4.7 percent of all requests

7.7 requests per 100,000

Manitoba (calendar 2012)

146 media requests

8.7 percent of all requests

11.7 requests per 100,000

Newfoundland and Labrador (fiscal 2012/13)

73 media requests

25.6 percent of all requests

13.9 requests per 100,000

British Columbia (fiscal 2012/13)

1,356 requests

28.1 percent of all requests

29.9 requests per 100,000

RIGHTS BUT NO RESPONSIBILITIES? In Canada, journalists exercise our right to information, as well as our freedom of expression, in their own interest, as well as the public interest.

But to what extent do journalists have a responsibility to protect those rights and freedoms?

And, if journalists don’t feel such a responsibility or don’t feel able to act on that responsibility, why is that and how is that affecting the decline of journalism and the ascendancy of spin in this country?

Those are just some of the questions I’ve been asking myself after the news media provided little or no coverage of an effort to make freedom of information an election issue, as well as the 20th anniversary of Alberta’s broken records access law.

I’ll be ruminating more about this in the future. But, in the meantime, I invite you to share your own perspectives by emailing me at this address.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Hill Times reports the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development has called in the RCMP to conduct an investigation into the leak of an internal briefing document warning senior federal government insiders that Canada’s clout in the international community is diminishing.

• Meanwhile, according to CBC News, the Mounties are also looking into the leak of internal documents showing the Prime Minister’s Office directed officials to “stop processing a preliminary group of Syrian refugees, pending an audit of their cases.”

• The Tyee reports Conservative Leader Stephen Harper “met privately with select media outlets at the Red Truck Beer Company in East Vancouver this morning.” A source told the online magazine that “those invited were asked to submit three questions days ahead of time [and] then told which ones they could ask the Prime Minister.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The Telegraph reports Newfoundland and Labrador’s information commissioner has ordered the “release most of a controversial, secret report into sexual exploitation in the province.” According to the newspaper, the government has “argued that the report was based on interviews with sex workers and vulnerable individuals who could be put in danger if it was released publicly.”

• New Brunswick’s public safety minister has, according to the Telegraph-Journal, “shut down a right-to-information request seeking details around the death of man at the Saint John Regional Hospital last month, citing an ongoing coroner’s investigation.”

• The Telegraph-Journal reports New Brunswick’s Horizon Health Network is “refusing to release two reports about how to improve hospital security and patient safety after the death of Serena Perry,” a 22-year-old patient who was staying in Saint John Regional Hospital’s psychiatric unit on the nigh of Valentine’s Day 2012.

• The Globe and Mail reports, “Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne agreed to bar the media from three events with a high-ranking Chinese official at the request of the Communist Party.” (hat tip: IntegrityBC)

• The Times-Transcript opines that New Brunswick’s “access to information and protection of privacy regulations appear to have worked well in the case of a Moncton daycare inspection report, in that the public’s right to know has been upheld in a way that also protects an individual worker at the daycare in question.”

• An all-party legislative committee is reviewing British Columbia’s freedom of information law, with submissions being due on Jan. 29, 2016. (hat tip: Dale Bass)

• SooToday.com reports the Ontario government “fought beak and claw” to prevent the release of information about wood turtles in the vicinity of the Bow Lake Wind Farm.

• Freelancer Bob Mackin tweets the British Columbia government “wants to charge $3K to show info about its propaganda website redesign.”

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• Metro Ottawa’s Steve Rennie tweets that the Ottawa Police Service wants him to pay $6,300 for a freedom of information request.

• The Vancouver Sun’s Daphne Bramham reports an online poll of 611 Metro Vancouver adults was asked to rank the University of British Columbia’s assets. According to the poll, “transparency was dead last, with 32 per cent saying it was ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ representative of UBC.” (hat tip: IntegrityBC)

• UBC Insiders reports University of British Columbia board members are likely using private email addresses to conduct their business. (hat tip: Katja Thieme)

According to the New Westminster Record, British Columbia’s Douglas College has “declined to answer questions about the departure of its former president or why the institution continued to pay him $14,000 a month after he left suddenly last year.”

• A freedom of information request filed by the Collingwood Connection for the Town of Collingwood, Ont.’s Elvis festival contract has been denied.

• The Richmond News quotes the City of Richmond, B.C.’s planning policy manager Terry Crowe as saying the switch from the mandatory long-form census to the National Household Survey means, “You’re starting from scratch so it’s difficult to get a sense of the trends.”

• The Region of Peel, Ont. is debating creating a lobbyist registry, reports the Calendon Enterprise. But, according to the newspaper, the “hiccup is not knowing what a lobbyist is.”

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

FEW CELEBRATE ALBERTA ACCESS LAW ANNIVERSARY

Reporters were among those who failed to observe 20 years of freedom of information in Alberta. (Graphic by Shutterstock.com)

Reporters were among those who failed to observe 20 years of freedom of information in Alberta. (Graphic by Shutterstock.com)

It was the 20th anniversary of Alberta’s freedom of information law last week. But there were few Albertans who observed that anniversary, even among reporters who should be – but too often aren’t – using that law in the public interest.

Alberta tabled its records access legislation in 1994, 14 years after the same thing happened in Canada’s Parliament and 29 years after the American Freedom of Information Act was introduced in the United States Senate.

That made the province the second to last jurisdiction on the continent to give its citizens a legal means of requesting unreleased government records. Yet Alberta replicated and reinforced the flaws in Canada’s other access laws.

Like those other laws, the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act restricts or denies access to records that would reveal internal discussions, debates or divisions over government decisions.

Moreover, the regulations accompanying that legislation made Alberta the most expensive province to file freedom of information requests, turning something that should be a right into a privilege.

It also allows public bodies to refuse access to the meeting minutes and agendas of their governing councils. And it was later amended to deny access to ministerial briefing notes and binders.

Indeed, according to Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy, Albert’s access law features an “enormous amount of wiggle room for recalcitrant public officials who would seek to avoid disclosure of embarrassing information”

That explains why the Edmonton Journal’s Linda Goyette once described that law as being an “oxymoron in action,” with her colleague Graham Thompson joking that FOIP stands for “Fuck Off, It’s Private.”

It also explains why Alberta, along with New Brunswick and the federal government, has been ranked as having the worst freedom of information law in the country.

And it explains why Newspapers Canada recently awarded the province failing grades in the timeliness and completeness of the records it releases.

Nevertheless, Alberta’s access law has still helped journalists tell stories the government would have otherwise suppressed, the very definition of news, according to 19th century British newspaper baron Alfred Harmsworth.

For example, in 2013, the Edmonton Journal’s Karen Kleiss and the Calgary Herald’s Darcy Henton used freedom of information requests to prove the ministry of human services had “dramatically under-reported the number of child welfare deaths over the past decade, undermining public accountability and thwarting efforts at prevention and reform.”

Then, a year later, CBC News’s Charles Rusnell and Jennie Russell used freedom of information requests to help uncover the “personal and political use of public resources” by former premier Allison Redford.

The 20th anniversary of Alberta’s access law coming into force, which took place this past Thursday, was a chance to comment on those successes, as well as the legislation’s failings.

The province’s information commissioner Jill Clayton even organized Right to Know Week forums in Calgary and Edmonton where that could happen.

Yet it was the bureaucrats responsible for processing the province’s freedom of information requests who seemed to make up the majority of the audience.

For example, in Edmonton, a show of hands revealed there were just three members of the public in attendance, as well as four reporters: frequent freedom of information request filers Rusnell and Russell, as well as the Globe and Mail’s Justin Giovannetti and the BBC’s Matt Danzico.

That’s both maddening and saddening when you consider the Edmonton Journal’s downtown headquarters is just a 13-minute walk away from the Federal Building, where that forum took place.*

Nor, according to the Canadian Newsstand and Google News, did the Journal, or any other newspaper in the province, print a word about the anniversary of Alberta’s freedom of information law.

Yet, that might not be surprising when you consider how little reporters use that legislation.

For example, in fiscal 2012/13, the media is estimated to have been responsible for just 110 access requests to provincial government ministries.

That represents 4.6 percent of the total or 2.8 requests per 100,000 people in this province.

By comparison, the media filed 29.9 requests per 100,000 people in British Columbia – over ten times more.

Alberta’s $25 freedom of information application fee, as well as the time-and-cash-strapped condition of its news outlets, may be part of the reason for those numbers.

But if it were the whole reason, wouldn’t you expect more op-eds and editorials demanding the repair of the province’s broken access system?

Wouldn’t you have expected reporters to write and talk about that disrepair during the recent Alberta election, where one of the most important issues was government accountability?

After all, it was in their private interest, as well as the public interest, to have done so.

Of course, Alberta’s reporters aren’t alone in being an inconstant friend to freedom of information.

According to Canadian Newsstand and Google News, the only newspapers to mention Canada’s Right to Know Week were the Chronicle Herald, the Coast, the Provost News, the Telegram and the Winnipeg Sun.

The Provost News and the Chronicle-Herald, along with the Medicine Hat News, were also the only newspapers to write about an effort by 22 civil society groups to convince political party leaders to commit to four key reforms to the federal Access to Information Act.*

My colleagues may look askance at me for writing this column. Such is the sensitivity of too many reporters in this country.

But this country, compared with the United States, has precious few resources for reporters who want to be more than heralds for the privileged and the powerful.

Freedom of information laws, however flawed they are, are one of those resources.

But unless reporters use and advocate for that legislation, those flaws will continue to deepen until the laws themselves fracture, leaving nothing left to celebrate.

* = Disclosure: I was an invited speaker at the Right to Know Week forums in Calgary and Edmonton. I’m also vice-president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, one of the 22 civil society group supporting the campaign to reform our broken access system. I organized the meeting where those reforms were drafted.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Coast, Halifax’s alternative newspapers, says it best: “Canada really sucks at access to information.” (hat tip: Dean Beeby)

• Vice News reports on a leaked email showing “Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs is miffed its employees are leaking classified internal documents to the media and wants them to stop.”

• Freelancer Bob Mackin reports lawyer Amelia Salehabadi Fouques, a director on the board of the Canadian Soccer Association, believes the organization needs to take drastic action to make it a leader in transparency.

• The National Observer reports, “A potentially explosive parliamentary investigation into the Harper government’s so-called ‘muzzling’ of government scientists shows no signs of being released before the federal election on Oct.19, despite Canada’s Information Commissioner digging into it for more than two and a half years.”

According to the Canadian Press, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, while visiting Nunavut, announced, “A New Democrat government would create a new parliamentary office to provide solid scientific advice and analysis to politicians, and would encourage scientists to speak their minds.”

• The Edmonton Journal reports a group of University of Alberta scientists have joined the Canadian Association of University Teachers in calling for a “new direction in science police and an end to [the] muzzling of federal scientists.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• New Brunswick’s public safety department is refusing to give the Telegraph-Journal details about the deaths of the 11 people who died in provincial custody since 2004. A department spokesperson told the newspaper in July that those details were being kept secret “out of respect for the deceased and the families.” But the government is now promising to review that policy.

• The Telegraph-Journal’s Karissa Donkin filed a freedom of information request for records related to her fight to obtain New Brunswick’s daycare inspection reports. The response was less than illuminating.

• The Chronicle Herald reports Nova Scotia’s chief information access and privacy officer believes the province’s freedom of information legislation “serves members of the public quite well.” But columnist Paul Schneidereit reports on the repeated complaints about that legislation, as well as the government’s refusal to keep a commitment to fix the law.

• “The Ontario government funnelled at least $2.1-million in taxpayers’ money over the past two years to Liberal-connected consultants and advertising agencies,” reports the Globe and Mail. “The funds came from the caucus services budget, a pool of money subject to minimal disclosure rules.”

• “The Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations is taking St. Thomas University to court over the universities refusal to release details of severance agreements of three administrators between 2012 and 2013,” according to the Aquinian.

• The Winnipeg Sun reports Saskatchewan Finance Minister Greg Dewar has announced “the public will now have greater access to information related to government contract [sic] with the creation of a database that includes monthly summaries of purchase orders and outline agreements worth $10,000 or more. Details will include the name of the vendor, the purpose of the contract, the value, the duration of the contract, and significant contract amendments.”

• Newfoundland and Labrador has released a draft open government plan. That plan promises to “streamline and enhance the access to information process,” as well as “expand the amount of publicly available government information.”

• Public servant Bonnie Nelson has been awarded the 2015 Robert C. Clark Award which “recognizes a significant contribution to advancing access to information in Alberta.” According to the office of Alberta’s information commissioner, Nelson “successfully implementing the first routine disclosure program for Alberta Environment, which helped pave the way for other open data initiatives in the province.”

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• Former Vancouver Non-Partisan Association council candidate Mike Klassen encourages whoever becomes the city’s new manager to make it a “model of openness and ask staff how you can exceed standards for access to information.”

• The City of Winnipeg has announced “public information released by the City through Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) applications, along with additional proactively disclosed civic government documents, will be published online and accessible to everyone.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• “Coun. Richard Carpenter is filing a complaint of an improper closed meeting against the City of Brantford for a budget task force meeting,” reports the Brant News.

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

THE MOST UNWANTED RIGHT IN ALBERTA?

Do Albertans really care if they don't know what the politicians in this building are doing? (Photograph by WinterforceMedia)

How much do Albertans care about knowing what the politicians in this building are doing? (Photograph by WinterforceMedia)

TWENTY YEARS OF OPENNESS? “Canada’s freedom of information laws are like transplanted organs. Grafted onto our public institutions decades ago, they have been constantly at risk of rejection, with the body politic doing comparatively little to ensure their acceptance. And perhaps nowhere is that more apparent than in Alberta.”

Those are the opening lines of a speech I’ll be giving Right to Know Week Forums being organized by Alberta’s information commissioner Jill Clayton.

To hear more, I encourage you to attend one of those forums, which will take place on Sept. 29 in Calgary and Oct. 1 in Edmonton.

The forums mark the 20th anniversary of Alberta’s access law.

Clayton will also be speaking, along with her staff who will give a presentation on the importance of the Magna Carta as the “foundation for access to information and the public’s right to know.“

In addition, in Edmonton, the city’s corporate and department initiatives director Wendy Gnenz will talk about her community’s Open City Initiative.

RUBIN-ESQUE Ken Rubin is one of Canada’s first and foremost access advocates and practitioners.

That’s why his upcoming mini-memoir in Ottawa Magazine is well worth the read for anyone concerned about government secrecy in this country.

In it, Rubin recounts how his fights against real estate development and for consumer protection in the seventies eventually resulted in him become a leading voice for greater freedom of information.

Here’s a taste:

Helping citizens of Centretown obtain data about its area improvement plan did not prevent my own downtown block north of Gloucester Street from falling prey to demolitions, high-rises, and parking lots. Indeed, despite my door-to-door research and activist efforts, the changing tide meant that my wife, Debbie, and I were evicted in December of 1972. I was down but not out — in fact, that battle emboldened me to become the determined investigator I am today.

The memoir is being published in the magazine’s October edition.

A FAST ONE In an interview with the Toronto Star last year, Treasury Board President Tony Clement admitted the Access to Information Act needs to be reviewed — with his government having failed to deliver on its 2006 promise to reform that law. But not everyone in the Conservative cabinet seems to think such reform is necessary.

Speaking to the Abbotsford News’s Tyler Olsen, International Trade Minister Ed Fast said, “I’m not sure the [access to information] system is in need of repair.”

A 2014 survey found Canadians have less access to government information than the five other Anglosphere countries.

When that access was measured on a scale of one to ten, New Zealand and the United States scored a nine, while Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom scored an eight.

By comparison, Canada scored a six. That puts us in the same company as Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Luxembourg and Mexico.

SUFFERING IN SILENCE Last week, I reported on how an op-ed by Medicine Hat News reporter Collin Gallant appears to have been one of only two stories published covering the launch of a national campaign to fix Canada’s broken Access to Information Act.*

Asked about why he didn’t think there was more coverage, Gallant told me, “I think people just get sort of worn down. And I think we’re sort of at the point, sadly, that they’re not going to be able to get a live quote or the information they are looking for in a story.”

As a result, “Journalists and younger journalists just feel like they are running into a situation where they are wasting their breath complaining about FOIP because it’s just so ingrained.”

* = Disclosure: I’m vice-president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, one of the 22 civil society group supporting the campaign to reform our broken access system.  I also organized the meeting where those reforms were drafted.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• The Ottawa Citizen reports, “There will be more strategic leaks by the Canadian Forces/DND to journalists who are deemed ‘friendly’ to the military,” while those who are “trouble-makers” will be the subject of “phone calls to media bosses, letters to the editor, etc.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The Tyee reports, “Anyone who wants to know how many temporary foreign workers have come to Canada in the first half of 2015 will have to pay to find out, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.” But the online magazine notes, “The request for payment comes more than a year after Employment and Social Development Canada, a separate department, promised it would publicly post such data each quarter in a press release detailing changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• Green Leader Elizabeth May calls for greater transparency in Canadian politics by endorsing four reforms to the Access to Information Act advocated for by a coalition of 22 civil society groups. May is the only leader so far to have made that endorsement.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, “Tom Mulcair pledged Tuesday that an NDP government would lift the lid of secrecy around the federal budgetary process — providing Canadians much more information about how government spends their money.”

• CBC News’s Dean Beeby tweets that Finance Canada has audited its access to information system “without talking to any requesters & (surprise) gives itself high marks!”

• Freelance journalist Shanifa Nasser tweets that the 30 day time limit to respond to access to information requests “has lost all meaning.” That tweet comes after Nasser filed a request on July 22 that was forgotten about until Aug. 19 when the government requested a 150-day extension.

• “As International Right to Know Day on Sept. 28 approaches, it is worth reflecting on the state of access to information across Canada,” writes the Centre for Law and Democracy’s Toby Mendel, noting that our country ranks a “very poor 59th place globally from among 102 countries with right to information laws.”

• The Globe and Mail’s Lawrence Martin writes, “The Conservatives have taken a lot of heat over information suppression. But it has had little effect. There are few signs of change. Their attitude is ‘stay the course.’ If you say too much you are dangerous; if you know too much you are a threat.”

• The Kelowna Capital News’s Kevin Parnell writes that if you ask Conservative MPs about gagging federal government researchers “you will hear denials. They don’t muzzle scientists and aren’t trying to control the flow of information. They would never! But how do we trust what a politician says when the track record of truth versus lies is a joke.”

• The Centre for Law and Democracy is hosting a panel discussion in Halifax celebrating International Right to Know Day. Panelists include Newfoundland and Labrador’s deputy premier Steve Kent, whose government recently reformed that province’s records access law.

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The Yellowknifer’s Shane Magee tweets that the Northwest Territories “remains one of four jurisdictions in Canada where municipalities aren’t covered by access to info legislation…That’s despite more than a decade of calls by information commish to update the law.” (hat tip: Karissa Donkin)

• “David Fraser, a lawyer with McInnes Cooper, will be representing Bullying Canada when the charity takes the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to court later in the fall over responses to two right to information requests,” reports the Daily Gleaner. “The first file relates to how [New Brunswick] spent its $700,000 anti-bullying budget, while the second file pertains to the work of the Positive Learning Environments committee. In both cases, Bullying Canada co-founder Rob Frenette said he received heavily redacted responses to his requests.”

• Ontario’s information commissioner Brian Beamish marked Right to Know Week in Sault Ste. Marie, delivering a speech that also talked about “important issues surrounding health privacy.”

• British Columbia’s information commissioner encourages citizens to participate in the review of their province’s access law as part of Right to Know Week.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “The Vision Vancouver majority on council may be violating the province’s open meeting laws by conducting caucus meetings before their regularly-scheduled council sessions,” according to a veteran lawyer quoted by the Vancouver Sun. (hat tip: Bob Mackin)

• The Telegraph-Journal reports New Brunswick’s “faculty associations are taking St. Thomas University’s administration to court over its refusal to disclose the amounts of three employee severance packages.”

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

CENSORS BLACK OUT MORE USING WHITE-OUT

Does blanking out information hide more than blacking it out? (Image by Shutterstock.com)

Does blanking out information hide more than blacking it out? (Image by Shutterstock.com)

WHITEWASH Unlike many of Canada’s provincial governments, British Columbia blanks rather than blacks out the information it censors from records released under its freedom of information legislation — a practice that could threaten the public’s information rights.

During a recent review of New Brunswick’s own access law, that province’s government found concerns about public bodies using white for redactions, stating:

…white-out makes it exceedingly difficult to know where something has been redacted or how big the redacted section may be. This can be important information when seeking to understand what has and has not been released, and this can infringe on the applicant’s right under the Act to challenge redactions.

In addition, blanked out records are much less telegenic than those that have been blacked out, reducing the impact of showing them during video news reports.

The British Columbia government ministry responsible for handling freedom of information requests didn’t respond to either of those concerns.

But a spokesperson did state in an email that, “Using white for redaction is a long-standing practice in B.C. for optimal readability for applicants.”

The spokesperson added that white “saves on printing costs (photocopies) for both government and applicants.”

SELF-HELP? Last week, a coalition of 22 civil society groups called on political parties to help reduce government secrecy by fixing the country’s broken records access law.

But, even though those repairs are in the public interest and journalists’ self-interest, that announcement got little coverage.

The groups, which included some of the country’s most prominent freedom of information advocates, asked political parties to endorse four reforms to the Access to Information Act.*

Those reforms included making significant changes to the exclusions and exemptions in the Act — loopholes that our public officials use and abuse to hide even the most basic information about their decisions from Canadians.

Such changes are especially important for journalists since access requests are one of the few means reporters still have of obtaining information that hasn’t been spun by the government.

That’s because, in the words of Medicine Hat News reporter Collin Gallant, “Long gone are the days when a simple phone call could put a reporter in touch with the person they needed in the federal government, be they anyone other than a communications handler.”

But despite those frustrations being shared by journalists across the country, Gallant’s op-ed supporting the recent call to fix the Access to Information Act was, according to the Canadian Newsstand database and Google News, one of just two stories published by news outlets about that reform effort.

* = Disclosure: I’m vice-president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, one of the 22 civil society groups calling for freedom of information reforms. I also organized the meeting where those reforms were drafted.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• Maclean’s magazine has published a cover story investigating the crisis in government data.

• “The information commissioner is taking the Prime Minister’s Office to court, accusing it of refusing to release documents about four senators embroiled in scandal,” reports the Canadian Press.

• The Ottawa Citizen reports Health Canada has repeatedly refused to say why it paid a “dodgy” Website in Croatia to publish some of its food safety science documents. The department also hasn’t responded to two 10-month-old access to information requests about that arrangement.

• Burnaby Now’s Jennifer Moreau demonstrates the frustration of dealing with Conservative media handlers by publishing a transcript of her conversation with one of them.

• This Magazine reports on the urgent need to reform Canada’s information legislation, quoting the Centre for Free Expression’s Jim Turk.

• Reuters investigative resources correspondent Mike De Souza tweets that, in response to a recent access request, “the Canadian government censored part of a published media article.”

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• British Columbia’s Interior Health Authority won’t say how much it is spending on a new residential care facility, with a spokesperson claiming that information can only be disclosed via a freedom of information request. The Kelowna Capital News also reports the “health authority has even gone so far as to tell the winning bidder not to reveal the figure either.”

• “The Nova Scotia government passed legislation last spring giving Halifax the green light to release a ‘sunshine list’ of the municipality’s top earners,” reports the Chronicle-Herald. “But several months later, city hall is still refusing to release the salaries of senior bureaucrats, citing privacy legislation.”

• Halifax Media Co-op reports, “A group of organizations in Nova Scotia is calling on the provincial government to implement improvements to the access to information framework – improvements they say are both essential and long overdue.”

• “The Alberta government released its list of sole-sourced contracts Thursday, in a publicly searchable database,” reports Huffington Post Alberta.

According to the Hamilton Spectator, Ontario MPP Monique Taylor’s private member’s bill, which would require the province’s children’s advocate to be notified when a child in-care dies or is critically injured, has passed second reading.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “Two months after a deadline to produce race and ethnicity data for people stopped by Peel police in 159,303 street checks — a practice known in Toronto as carding — the force has not produced the information requested [by the Toronto Star] under access to information laws.”

• Concordia University’s student newspaper reports the McGill University had previously tried and failed to have access requests for information about its military research classified as frivolous or vexatious. Such a classification would have allowed McGill to not respond to those requests.

• The Winnipeg Free Press reports Mayor Brian Bowman has fulfilled one of his campaign commitments by announcing that, beginning on Sept. 30, council records will be “produced in a format known as machine-readable, which will allow for easier online searching, record-keeping and management.”

• The Winnipeg Sun reports city councillors have voted to spend $30,000 to establish an online submission system for freedom of information requests, something that could save the city $122,000 a year.

• The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association will be celebrating this year’s Right to Know week by hosting a Vancouver workshop on filing freedom of information requests.

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

THE RACE TOWARD TRANSPARENCY

Which federal political party is ahead in the race for open government?

Which federal opposition party is ahead in the race to promise an open government? (Photograph by Shutterstock.com)

THEY’RE THE CHAMPIONS? “The Liberals have announced the most robust plans for access reform so far in the marathon election campaign,” according to the Toronto Star.

But a reading of recent proposed amendments to the country’s freedom of information law introduced prior to the campaign suggest the NDP might actually do more to open up the federal government.

The outline of the Liberal plan for access reform was first sketched out in party leader Justin Trudeau’s proposed Transparency Act, which was introduced in June 2014.

As I wrote earlier, that bill included laudable proposals such as eliminating fees for access requests and giving the information commissioner the power to order the release of records the government has denied access to.

But, despite what National Newswatch columnist Don Lenihan seems to believe, the bill’s text did little to fulfill Trudeau’s promise to make all government records “open by default.”

After all, according to information commissioner Suzanne Legault, that’s the way the Access to Information Act is already written.

But there are so many exceptions to that rule in the law that government has instead become secret by default.

The Transparency Act didn’t lay a hand on those exceptions and, in an earlier interview with me, the party’s open government critic Scott Simms repeatedly confirmed the Liberals are comfortable with them.

“I wouldn’t want to say this is exhaustive, it’s perfect, it’s fine, it’s just a matter of how you are applying it. But I think, for the most part, what frustrates Canadians is how the [exemptions and exclusions] are applied,” he said, later adding he wouldn’t want to endorse all of the exceptions.

Such a statement does not exactly inspire confidence in the Liberal’s commitment to openness.

By comparison, in Jan. 2015, NDP MP Pat Martin introduced a reform bill that would have explicitly provided greater (albeit not unrestricted) access to cabinet and policy advice records.

That’s important because the exceptions to making those records public are among the most abused and frustrating provisions in the Access to Information Act.

Martin’s bill wouldn’t have eliminated any of the fees associated with using that legislation.

But it would have given the commissioner order-making power, as well as requiring public officials to create records that “document their decisions, actions, advice, recommendations and deliberations.”

Martin’s bill would have also made all public bodies subject to the Access to Information Act, with a requirement to disclose any record if the “public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs in importance the need for secrecy.”

Again, that’s a more robust proposal than the one put forward by the Liberals in their election platform, which merely promises to make the “Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices, as well as administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts” subject to the Act.

And it’s worthwhile remembering Martin — who has been introducing bills to reform records access since 2005 — isn’t the NDP’s only prominent right to know advocate.

The MP who seconded Martin’s most recent reform effort, Murray Rankin, helped draft British Columbia’s freedom of information law and was an early promoter of such legislation federally, having written a research study on the subject in 1977 for the Canadian Bar Association.

That being said, the NDP hasn’t yet laid down a government transparency policy plank, with the party telling the Toronto Star it will have something to say on the issue before Election Day.

So, despite Rankin and Martin’s presence, it’s possible the NDP will retreat from its past proclamations now that they could win the election.

The reason: most opposition parties become considerably less enthusiastic about freedom of information once they form government.

But, until Canadians know one way or another, it’s too early to declare the Liberals champions of our information rights.

SEEING GREEN? If you’re wondering, neither Green Leader Elizabeth May or her parliamentary colleague Bruce Hyer have introduced private member’s bills that would reform the Access to Information Act. The party’s election platform, however, does promise to “overhaul” that law, without providing further details.

TAKING ACTION ON REDACTION Journalists have increasingly been using the term redaction to describe what happens when public bodies remove information from records requested under Canada’s freedom of information laws. But is there a better word they could be using to explain what’s happening?

According to the Canadian Newsstand database, in 2006 there were at least four stories published where that term appeared along with the words freedom of information request, access to information request or right to information request. Nine years later, there were at least 93 such stories.

But when public bodies redact information, they are actually censoring it — something the New Brunswick government acknowledges in its recent review of that province’s access legislation.

So shouldn’t journalists just write that instead?

Number of stories about record requests that include the term redaction*

2014 – 93

2013 – 54

2012 – 47

2011 – 44

2010 – 35

2009 – 23

2008 – 11

2007 – 6

2006 – 4

* = To find those stories, I used the following search string: (“freedom of information request” OR “access to information request” OR “right to information request” OR “FOI request” OR “FOIP request” OR “ATI request” OR “ATIP request” OR “RTI request”) AND redact*

MIA ON RTK The Harper administration’s secrecy has been making headlines across the country, something that should mean more public interest in this year’s Right to Know Week events. But, unfortunately, Canada’s information commissioner won’t be part of any of them.

That’s because, according to a spokesperson from the commissioner’s office, “As a non-partisan Agent of Parliament, that the Commissioner has decided that she and her Office will not participate in events during the federal election period.”

As a result, the Grace-Pépin Access to Information Award also won’t be awarded until after the election is over.

SQUIBS (FEDERAL)

• iPolitics reports former Conservative nomination candidates risk losing a $1,000 “Good Conduct Bond” if they publicly criticize the party or its hopefuls during the election.

• The Montreal Gazette has published a helpful primer on how to use Quebec and Canada’s freedom of information laws to “peek into government files.”

Unmuzzle Canada, a “grassroots group of people” concerned about the federal government’s “increasingly restrictive communications policies” have launched a petition campaign to end the gagging of scientists, ambassadors, librarians and MPs. They are also encouraging supporters to pose with duct tape and share photos of how that hardware is supposed to be used, as well as send actual rolls of duct tape to Ottawa.

• BuzzFeed Canada’s Ishmael Daro writes that, nine moths after requesting information about @Canada’s first tweet, he’s finally received a response from the federal government. But, as a result of that delay, “I can’t even pretend it’s newsworthy at this point.” (hat tip: Sherwin Arnott)

• CBC News’s Dean Beeby tweets that five surveys ordered by the Harper administration, paid for by Canadians, have been blacked out under the Access to Information Act. What’s there to hide, he asks?

SQUIBS (PROVINCIAL)

• The Telegraph-Journal’s editorial board comes out against the New Brunswick government’s plan to consider proposals that would make it more difficult to request records in that province. The board writes, “This information belongs to the public — the bureaucracy are merely caretakers. The public deserves reasonable access.”

• After a two-year fight, the Telegraph-Journal has obtained details of inspections at daycares, which had previously been kept secret by the New Brunswick government. But two daycares are trying to keep their inspection reports private.

• A woman who was previously banned from visiting the continuing care centre where her parents reside has said Alberta Health Services shredded records about that decision. According to the Edmonton Journal, she had asked for those records under the province’s freedom of information legislation.

• A Winnipeg man, who has accused the Winnipeg Police Service and Province of Manitoba of using secret records to stop his bid to be a foster parent, says his requests to see the incriminating information were denied under the province’s freedom of information law. The Winnipeg Free Press quotes the man as saying, “They put this black mark on your file, but then there’s no checks or balances in place so you can go and fight it.”

• Deirdre Wade, the former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s National Privacy and Access Law Section, has criticized a recommendation by New Brunswick information commissioner that her office should have the power to review cases where the provincial government has claimed solicitor-client privilege to prevent the release of information under its records access law.

• The Vancouver Sun’s data journalism specialist Chad Skelton is leaving the paper. In a posting on his blog, Skelton writes he’s taken a buyout offer to mainly “pursue my other great passion: teaching. Both at Kwantlen [Polytechnic University], where I’ve been a part-time faculty member for the past decade, and through my own data visualization training workshops. I’ll also be looking for other opportunities to put my data and storytelling skills to use.”

• The Lloydminster Source reports, “The Saskatchewan NDP party joined forces with the privacy commissioner to demand stronger legislation after the Office of the Premier released private information about a whistleblower who went public about poor conditions at a seniors home where he was employed.”

• Describing freedom of information legislation as a “pillar of democracy,” the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative’s Keith Reynolds writes in Rabble.ca that, over the years, its base has been “chipped away” in Canada. That’s why Reynolds is encouraging British Columbians to take part in the current review of the province’s version of that law.

SQUIBS (LOCAL)

• “A group of students from McGill University says the university continues to stymie their efforts to uncover what goes on in certain research labs and is going to great lengths and expense to try to block students from accessing information about its military ties,” reports the Montreal Gazette.

• The Canadian Press reports, “Days before Toronto must decide whether to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, critics are sounding the alarm over what they call unprecedented secrecy surrounding the process.” (hat tip: Ian Bron)

• The City of Brandon, Man.’s poverty committee has, according to the community’s daily newspaper, “submitted a report asking for council’s support in reinstating the national long-form census, which was abolished by the federal government in 2010.

• Alberta’s information commissioner has decided the Town of Ponoka no longer needs to respond to freedom of information requests about a local improvement project. The reason: according to the town’s paper, after responding to three earlier requests, the commissioner found the remainder filed with the town “are repetitious and of a systematic nature.”

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