OTTAWA | A “farce” for some, a “disappointment” for others: the promises of transparency of the Trudeau government, after eight years in power, are far from satisfying the experts and the Federal Information Commissioner.
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“Since I assumed the role of commissioner, I have noticed a constant decline of the access to information system to such a point that it no longer achieves its goal,” underlines Caroline Maynard, the watchdog independent of the transparency of the federal government, in its latest annual report.
In interview, Mme Maynard said she was “disappointed” that the current Liberal government refused to modernize the Access to Information Acta project postponed to 2025, after the next federal elections.
“The government knows it doesn’t work. We’ve been saying it for years. Deadlines are getting longer and longer. Institutions are not equipped to respond to access requests which continue to increase,” she says.
Disinformation
Commissioner Maynard is concerned that the lack of transparency of federal institutions fuels the population’s distrust of governments in this era where false news abounds on the internet.
However, the culture of secrecy and control of information remain the rule in Ottawa, despite the Trudeau government’s promises of transparency since 2015.
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“It is important for Canadians, through journalists, through access requests, to obtain this information, precisely to have confidence in our government, to have confidence in the decisions that are made and to understand them” , insists Mme Maynard.
“But when you don’t have this information, what we see is that the complainants say that they are suspicious, that they have the impression of being lied to,” she laments.
It’s cracking everywhere
For a fee of $5, all Canadians can request information from the Government of Canada, under the Access to Information Act.
The law provides that the federal government must respond to this request within 30 days, a period which, however, tends to extend to several weeks, months or years.
The Information Commissioner is responsible for investigating delays, excessive redactions and refusals to release information, but Mme Maynard and his team have, for years, been inundated with complaints, without being able to supply what was demanded.
The federal government’s access to information system has become so dysfunctional that even the transparency watchdog faces endless delays, laments retired colonel and lawyer Michel Drapeau, one of Canada’s leading authorities on the subject. .
“The system is bogged down on the side of federal institutions and on the side of the Office,” he expressed concern before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Protection of Personal Information and Ethics.
In an interview, Mr. Drapeau maintains that the Office of the Information Commissioner has been “declawed” over the years and today suffers from excessive “bureaucracy”.
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals promised, when they took power in 2015, to lead the most open government in history.
With hindsight, the federal government’s record in terms of transparency has “become a farce,” says Mr. Drapeau.