Without a good public education system and transparent access to information from our leaders, democracy is meaningless. As much to exercise one’s citizenship as to hold decision-makers fully accountable for what they do… or do not do.
• Read also: The President of the National Assembly, Nathalie Roy, wants to keep her bills secret
However, in Quebec, the public school network has been overshadowed for decades by heavily subsidized private schools.
As for the law supposed to govern access to information, particularly on the use of public funds by governments, multiple state corporations and satellite organizations, it is obviously a toothless tiger.
As confirmed by the substantiated file published in recent days by The newspaper, we can no longer count the journalists who, seeking to know where taxpayers’ funds go, too often come up against technocratic and political structures of unjustifiable opacity.
Obtaining complete information is a real obstacle course which, for a single document, can even take years of waiting…
The patience and perseverance of the Bureau of Investigation in the ludicrous case of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) are the latest example in an endless series, all media combined.
When we want to prevent citizens from knowing what we are doing with their money, the most popular means is nevertheless the redaction festival to the point of absurdity. Yet accountability in democracy is one of its most fundamental principles.
Denial of accountability
However, transparently informing a society of how and why its elected officials, bureaucrats and senior managers spend citizens’ money should go without saying.
The fact is that redacted or completely inaccessible public documents constitute a denial of accountability. Since, normally, who says public funds should mean public accountability.
The words “secret”, “hidden” and “redacted” are the complete opposite. They deny the democratic obligation of decision-makers to give the media and citizens full access to any information of a “public” nature.
One example among others: Nathalie Roy, President of the National Assembly – the very heart of Quebec democracy – refuses to disclose to the Bureau of Investigation her detailed accounts of expenses incurred in her duties.
Secrecy is never good
According to the head of access to information of the National Assembly, Mr.me Roy would have “judged that it was not appropriate to make the documents concerning her accessible”. Really?
Mme Roy, in addition to being a former journalist, is nevertheless recognized by her peers as being a president of great competence. Why then not simply take inspiration from his predecessor, François Paradis?
Mr. Paradis, when he became president after the very spendthrift Jacques Chagnon, had shown himself not only to be frugal, but also exemplary transparent in the disclosure of his expense accounts.
In other words, when the time comes to inform citizens of how their money is spent, secrecy is never the right choice. In fact, secrecy is toxic.
By depriving citizens of their right to know, in detail, what is being done with THEIR public treasure, secrecy undermines the population’s already damaged trust in its institutions.
In doing so, it weakens the very exercise of democracy.