 Points of View - Editorial - May 10, 2008 |
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| Information is getting too scarce |
Information, and access to it, gives elected officials, journalists and members of the public the ability to hold the government accountable for its actions. Despite Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s election pledge that he would improve accountability in government, his actions over the last several weeks are further proof the Conservatives are increasingly bent on controlling who gets access to what.
The biggest sign of this increasing level of secrecy was last week’s revelation that the Conservatives quietly killed a public access to information registry often used by journalists, experts and the public. It was revealed civil servants have been informed they are no longer required to update the Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS). The online tool is a list of every access to information request filed to federal departments and agencies. Users frequently log in to find information, statistics and hone the scope of future searches in the hopes of turning up obscure government documents. Harper dismissed CAIRS as "expensive" and a centralized tool established under the previous Liberal government.
But the CAIRS fiasco is not the only action that stands as proof of the Conservatives’ increasing need to control information. A Liberal press release sent out Thursday indicated that, of 200 access to information requests submitted by the party, only 57 were processed within the expected 30- to 60-day period. Some took six months, others took a year and, according to MP Pablo Rodriguez, come August, one will have been in the works for approximately two years.
Auditor General Sheila Fraser, who is seen by most Canadians as the one person willing to shred the cloak of secrecy of any government department, even expressed her displeasure with government practices when she blasted a draft communications strategy that would allow the Privy Council Office to go through and vet her media releases. That action seems perplexing, because it was Fraser’s revelations of the sponsorship scandal that handed the 2006 election to the Conservatives.
Controlling the message has been a common theme for Harper and his Conservatives from the time they first took office, when they started listing which journalists would be allowed to attend certain press conferences. Last month, the Conservatives took that policy one laughable step further when, in response to an ongoing Elections Canada investigation into the party’s spending during the last election, they attempted to release warrant documents to certain journalists in a secretive setting, only to cause an uproar among the media who weren’t invited, compelling them to switch hotels, cancel the briefing, then leave through the fire escape.
Secrecy in government only makes the public suspicious. The wounds from the sponsorship scandal that bounced the Liberals from office have not yet entirely healed and any notion of a cover-up still elicits strong responses from voters. Harper can try to control the information flowing from his government all he wants, but the more limits he tries to impose, the more voters will start to ask what, if anything, his government is trying to hide.
Government isn’t a privilege, it’s a responsibility that requires a commitment to openness and accountability. One piece of legislation with the word "accountability" contained in the title does not absolve the Conservatives of their obligations to the public. Harper can talk all he wants about how much more open his government is than its predecessors, but when it comes to access and secrecy, actions speak louder than words. |
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