A clear indication Trudeau is failing the transparency test
Whether the budgetary shortfall of $700,000 is a bureaucratic snafu or an attempt to stifle the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC), there’s no doubt that the Trudeau government is falling well short of its pledge of open and transparent governance.
Federal Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard last week told the House of Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics that Treasury Board accounting meant her budget was essentially reduced by five per cent.
“This reduction in my budget will spell longer delays for complainants who are seeking information from government institutions,” she said.
“In concrete terms, this represents a significant portion of my overall IT budget or money to cover the costs of defending my orders in court or funding for a full team of investigators.”
The reduction comes as there’s an ever-growing backlog of access-to-information requests, as well as legal challenges, including 11 cases where her department is fighting the government for access to documents.
“Government information belongs to Canadians so unless there are limitations, exceptions, exclusions, that information should be provided to Canadians,” Maynard said.
Politicians and bureaucrats clearly don’t agree. They’d rather the public knew nothing. They want to control the message, attempting to keep the public in the dark about the many mistakes, misuses of funds and the like.
Governments are increasingly stingy about providing the public with data about what they’re up to. Even the most basic requests are stonewalled, in some cases for years.
It’s now commonplace for delays in responding to even the most innocuous questions. In short, every effort is being made to avoid accountability.
Officials increasingly want you to know only what they choose. It’s all about managing the message.
Transparency is crucial to ensuring that elected representatives are politically accountable, an ideal check on power. Access to information is the cornerstone of democratic development.
Even when there is nothing to hide – the refusal to divulge information is not always associated with a cover-up – public officials tend to begrudge providing the public with information. This may be a proclivity for erring on the side of caution; newspapers would have governments lean toward the other, more open side.
As a long list of studies indicate, we’re getting much less in the way of transparency and accountability.
FOI (freedom of information) requests, often stringently protested by politicians and bureaucrats, have brought out into the open many illegal, unethical and questionable activities on the part of government officials. That’s clearly in the public good, and an indication of the perils of going backwards, as governments would have us go.
There’s a difference between choosing to be ignorant and being kept that way.
Given the state of our society, it’s easy to say that many of us certainly opt for the former, while we’re not sure of how much effort is going into the latter (hint, a great deal).
Canada in fact ranks 53nd in a global list of 140 countries assessed under the RTI (right to information) rating, a project by the Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) and fellow non-governmental organization Access Info Europe. The rating system, which gave Canada a score of 93 points out of a possible 150, looks at the strength of legal frameworks for access to information.
Canada lags behind countries such as Sweden (101 points) and Finland (106), but perhaps more surprisingly the likes of Afghanistan (139), Mexico (136) and Serbia (135). The RTI Ratings are in keeping with other studies showing the Canadian public’s right to know is slowly eroding, even in comparison to what wouldn’t be called progressive parts of the world.
Governments at all levels in this country routinely refuse, delay and redact information of importance to the functioning of informed democracy, putting its own interests ahead of the public good. The federal government, in particular, has given lie to its pledge of openness and transparency, as annual freedom of information audits have revealed.
Far too often governments pay little more than lip service to the issue. The right to know – an actual right – is disregarded.
Governments are required to be open with people, that’s a clear implication of the guarantee of freedom of expression under international law, which protects the right to seek, receive and impart information, the Centre for Law and Democracy stresses.
We put them in power, and they’re answerable to us.
That accountability aspect is lost on politicians and bureaucrats. There is no real accountability for decisions and policies, no matter how poor or damaging. Likewise, there’s a growing trend to attempt to manage the message, with officials unwilling to answer questions about policies and spending decisions: they’re keen to announce the spreading around of tax dollars, but opposed to explaining the rationale, the need or the consequences. When things go wrong, as is often the case, they go silent.
That’s clear even from local governments and the likes of the school board.
With each lack of response, they move away from public service and accountability to those paying the bills.
Social media is not helpful in that regard, as it allows for policy by Tweet while giving the illusion of “communication.”
We already know the social media is a hotbed of misinformation uninformed views. That politicians and bureaucrats take to it with one-sided messages doesn’t elevate its status.
The reason disinformation and misinformation are so prevalent today is that it sells better, pushed by algorithms interested in generating revenue, not the truth.
Beyond the propaganda
model, sticking with one-way statements and avoiding questions is simply a way for officials to dodge embarrassment over poor decisions and suspect actions.
Indefensible policies and spending should never see the light of day. When they do – and they have – they should be terminated immediately. Everything should be transparent. The public is unlikely to see that kind of accountability, however.