AnonymousDecember 10, 2009 14:06 EST

How the hell does UGG Bailey Button get comments here???
Let's clean it up Walrus!

AnonymousDecember 10, 2009 14:08 EST

London hotels - what exactly are you trying to say?

Duff ConacherDecember 12, 2009 15:14 EST

Dear The Walrus,

In contrast to the claim made in your article, the actual overall record of public access to government documents is no worse under the federal Conservatives than under any previous government — it is just as bad as it has always been, as the Information Commissioner's annual reports dating back to 1984 make clear (The Dark Country - Jan/Feb 2010).

The Conservatives' Accountability Act made the positive change of extending coverage of the federal Access to Information Act to dozens of government institutions that were not covered before, but also made the negative change of prohibiting the release of draft audit and other internal reports until the final report is completed.

As your article points out, Democracy Watch and its Open Government Coalition is pushing the Conservatives to make further positive changes, but we are also pushing all the federal parties.

In the current minority federal government situation, the opposition parties could at any time work together to pass an open government bill that makes the key changes of extending coverage of the Act to every federal government and federal-government funded institution, requiring everyone in all of those institutions to create a record of every action and decision, and empowering the Information Commissioner to order the release of any record that is in public interest if the release will not result in physical or unjustifiable harm to anyone or any organization (which are the key changes the Conservatives promised to make to the Act during the 2006 federal election).

Canadians deserve better actions and decisions on open government from all the federal political parties (and, by the way, also from provincial, territorial and municipal politicians).

Sincerely,
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Democracy Watch

P.O. Box 821, Stn. B
Ottawa, Canada
K1P 5P9
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Fax: (613) 241-4758
Email: dwatch@web.net
Internet: http://www.dwatch.ca

Since 1993, making governments and corporations more accountable to you, and making Canada the world's leading democracy

PathrikDecember 18, 2009 13:51 EST

On thing the article only partially addresses is the impact of specific privacy legislation (such as PIPEDA and other acts). These acts work like sledgehammers cracking a peanut- they were sold to voters as necessary to protect consumers and citizens from certain types of personal information being used for bad purposes by people or entities. While this is what governments claim they have done the facts do not demonstrate that data stored within governments are safer today than in past years. Read auditor general reports on the lack of management controls and security protocols in data repositories within governments. You could pretty much drive a mac truck through the loopholes in certain cases!

What these pieces of legislation were truly designed to do was to give government officials the 'moral high ground' argument involving FOI requests- which has stripping away the concept of the right to know. Government officials routinely describe restricting all kinds of information on moral grounds, specifically relating to privacy.

Aviation TutorJanuary 22, 2010 19:59 EST

Why would they allow this in Canada, people cant always let things go

SteveSeptember 16, 2010 08:28 EST

Freedom of information? Why would any of the parties support that? You seem to be under the impression we were still a democracy; think again. This country is becoming a police state.....look a little closer. It is the boiling frog syndrome......slowly change the rules, slowly change the constitution, and the people won't notice. It has been going on since Diefenbaker, if not further back. Most of the media is controlled by the few……they even want to bring “Fox North” to Canada…..God help us all!