BY DEAN BEEBY
Courts and governments across Canada tightened the noose around transparency last year, making it harder for journalists and other civil society actors to hold governments to account.
Last February, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a decision by the Ontario government to withhold ministerial mandate letters as cabinet secrets. CBC had been denied the letters in 2018 after a request under the province’s freedom-of-information law.
Many rulings and appeals later, the high court settled the matter. Secrecy won, hands down.
The far-reaching decision may result in cabinet-adjacent records being improperly withheld in future cases.
In June 2019, Canada’s information commissioner was given order-making power. Misbehaving departments now could be ordered to release documents.
However, such orders are not binding, despite what the government may claim. Some departments simply ignore them.
The information commissioner has gone to court at least six times to ask a federal judge for a judicial order to compel recalcitrant departments to act on her orders. National Defence has been the worst offender so far, and 2024 saw the pace quicken.
These cases drain legal resources on both sides, using public money better spent on improving the access-to-information system.
Government records had a nasty habit of disappearing in 2024.
The Canada Border Services Agency managed to lose 12,000 access-to-information requests, blaming the fiasco on technical troubles.
In the fall, the Alberta government introduced a bill to protect more information from disclosure, including factual information related to its decisions. The province’s information commissioner called it an “erosion of access rights.”
In Nova Scotia’s election this year, Premier Tim Houston refused to commit to giving order-making power to the province’s information commissioner, which he had promised in the 2021 election, when he first won government. At the federal level, the Access to Information Act fell off the political agenda altogether, despite the government’s promises of legislative reform.
In a positive move for transparency, a non-government group last year launched Open By Default, which is doing the web posting that Ottawa refuses to undertake. They’ve made public about 48,000 such documents to date, and are expanding by the week.
Looking ahead, we will see a federal election and change of government in 2025. General elections can sometimes bring meaningful reform to transparency laws. Too often, promised improvements are forgotten once a political party wins power.
World Press Freedom Canada urges federal parties to include access to information reform in their platforms, and to act on it once in office.
(A form of this article originally appeared in Dean’s newsletter)
