Impolitical spotted the story in French at Le Devoir and blogged it here. That got me checking the English language press to find a story at the National Post.
A federal watchdog is investigating whether the office of a minister in the Harper government interfered with a request under access to information laws to block the release of sensitive information.
Interim information commissioner Suzanne Legault has confirmed she is launching a "priority investigation" into the matter to determine whether the staff of a cabinet minister, Christian Paradis, attempted to intimidate federal bureaucrats into withholding information that was requested.
Good! Every information commissioner for years has reported that governments at all levels have been playing games with information requests and that the trend has been towards greater and greater secrecy. It's a trend that needs to be reversed and this is how it can start: with an investigation of a particularly obvious case of a government attempting to deny us information to which we're entitled. Hopefully this will broaden into a more comprehensive debate about the issue. Full credit to the Canadian Press for the original report and to Suzanne Legault for launching an investigation on her own authority (though I suspect she just got herself removed from the Conservative party's Christmas card list).
Now to return to Impolitical's post for a moment:
Also of note in Le Devoir's story, news of a system of two tracks for access to information requests. Apparently citizen initiated requests are treated "more quickly" and on a "less protected" basis (unclear exactly what that means) yet media initiated requests take a political route through the Harper Ministers' offices. And we know what that means, practically speaking, as we know that the PMO is not exactly big into decentralized decision-making. Not sure if this is the first time we're hearing about this two track system or not, it appears new to me in its becoming public but something that would have been suspected, yes.
The two-track system may or may not be a Conservative innovation but when it comes to governments politicizing information requests it's just a variation on a theme. The original Toronto Star link is dark but over six years ago I was pointing to stories like this one:
The change reflects a growing culture of secrecy in the PMO, according to Information Commissioner John Reid, who is fighting several legal actions by the PMO aimed at preventing release of a range of records, including the PM's daily agendas.
And my favourite part:
The Chrétien government also argues that ministers' offices are not "institutions of government" and, therefore, are not covered by the access law...
Chrétien could be full of crap, too. It's long past time we had a serious look at this issue.
The question of whether Minister's offices are political or bureaucratic has been an ongoing question in the country, both on the ATIP side and the archives side. Some Ministers like to take advantage of the tax credit they can receive by privately donating their papers from their tenures (even though many, such as myself, would argue that the files of someone in high public office should be the Crown's documents, just as documents created by civil servants belong to the Crown not the individual creating them).
The last flare up I remember on this issue (such as they can be "flare ups") came after a ruling in the United States which saw, IIRC, Dick Cheney's records declared personal, and therefore outside of the reach of both their archives service and ATIP-equivalent requests.
There is also an argument that documents, such as the PM's daily agendas, if they are found to be Crown (and not personal) documents are covered largely by Cabinet Confidence provisions of the ATI Act, keeping them from being disclosed for twenty years.
I remembering reading a report a few years ago that discussed ATIP legislations, and our Federal ones in particular, that argued that the drafters (in this case the last Trudeau government) wrote acts with nice names that contained provisions that attacked the principles they claim to espouse.
A few related links, now that I've had a chance to find them (in part prompted by an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen this morning).
'Open Government': Letter vs Spirit of Access laws
"Open Government" Ottawa Citizen 12 Feb 2010
Harper defends database [CAIRS] shutdown Globe and Mail 5 May 2008 (updates 30 May 2009)
-These are both critical of the Harper government, but we have to remember that it isn't just a Conservative Party issue (though the cancelling of CAIRS, and the reasoning behind it, was idiotic at best) and that other governments have also engaged in this kind of morally (if not legally) reprehensible activity. The funny thing in the second article is that Harper argued for shutting CAIRS down because it represented an idea of government where 'centralised control' was obsessive--something which he has been (IMO rightfully) criticized for furthering.
(Prime) Ministerial Records: Public or Private?
"Top court to rule on public seeing PM [Chretien] agendas" Canada.com 18 Dec 2009
-Another non-partisan question, though, ironically, this question was opened by Reform opposition MPs and continues to be fought by the Conservative Party government. It stands as a clear example of Harper et al singing a new tune once in government.
The Cheney Case
"Ruling on Records a Win for Cheney" Washington Post 20 Jan 2009
-This article comes after the ruling, and, at least from my after work on Friday reading of the article, shows the confusion apparent in the Public vs Private debate (it is similar to the Ministerial question--are the actions of the persons in the executive branch political or governmental?)
There's also a 300+ page report criticizing federal Access laws available here. Scroll down--it is about half way down the page titled "Falling Behind." I haven't read all of it, but the summaries I've seen suggest it is very critical of the Canadian laws (it is comparative to the provinces and other international jurisdictions).
p.s. if the hyperlinks and html muck stuff up, feel free to edit it so it works!!
Had to repair a wayward quotation mark on one link. The rest were fine.
I think Cheney is a separate discussion. We're talking about someone who earned the nickname "Fourth Branch" when he insisted that his office was literally a separate branch of government that was excluded from all information laws.
Another story, briefing books for the minister of democratic reform (Steven Fletcher) who claims that part of his job is to increase accountability in government, has just had his briefing books found to be "cabinet confidence" and therefore outside the scope of ATIP requests. From the article, the Information Commissioner isn't even aloud to look at them to see if PCO has any grounds for their claim.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Feds+turn+down+access+request+briefing+books/2560117/story.html