By Christine Boyd
The recent proclamation that cabinet ministers and their staff can withhold expense reports and other documents from the public is only the latest outrage by a Liberal government hell-bent on eroding accountability.
Any assurances to the contrary by Jean Chrétien and his lackeys ring as true as the words of Sir Hiss, the snake in The Jungle Book, who croons “Trust in me” while tightening his coils around Mowgli.
Democracy depends upon open access to government information. Canadians have the right to monitor the actions of those they’ve elected to power.
That principle led Pierre Trudeau to introduce the Access to Information Act in 1983.
Yet the federal departments’ handling of access requests under successive Chrétien regimes show the Liberals now scorn the idea of transparent government.
The Cabinet exemption –
recommended by the Treasury Board, which claims political employees are not government employees or contractors, and therefore do not fall under the scope of the access act – is only the most recent example.
Before Christmas, the government adopted Bill C-36, a controversial piece of anti-terrorism legislation that beefed up the government’s power to suppress information.
And study after study shows federal departments are censoring more information, charging more money for the service and taking longer to process requests.
Why should we care?
Consider the following, all unveiled through access requests:
• Health Canada has done little to follow up on a coroner’s recommendations that would force physicians and pharmacists to tell them when drugs harm or kill people. The coroner was investigating the death of a 15-year-old girl who died while taking the stomach drug Prepulsid, which has been linked to at least eight more deaths.
• The Chrétien government publicly announced about $150 million worth of financing before it was actually approved by cabinet, a violation of its own financial rules.
• Chrétien lobbied the Business Development Bank of Canada to help get a loan for friends and business colleagues involved in a controversial Shawinigan project.
Access to information requests have helped strip away the wall of secrecy erected by the government and the civil service.
They’ve uncovered patronage, fraud, misuse of funds, program and policy failures, health threats, security risks, and more.
It’s not just a federal matter – provinces and municipalities operate under similar regulations that give the public access to information.
But the federal act affects all Canadians and sets the pace for all others.
If we allow the federal government to continue to weaken the access to information act and strengthen its grip on potentially embarrassing records, we risk losing an essential prop to democracy.
This month, a federal government task force is expected to release a report evaluating the Access Act.
It’s time for all Canadians to take a stand.
Write to an MP. File an access request. Join the lobby group Open Government Canada. March in the streets.
We must act before the public’s right to know becomes the government’s right to keep us in the dark.
And that’s a snakepit we’ll never escape.