Even if Minister Jean-François Roberge assures that there is no political interference in access requests, several examples demonstrate the close proximity between political cabinets and civil servants when the time comes to respond to the media.
• Read also – Our journalists tell their horror stories with access to information
• Read also – Access to information: the dunces of transparency
The Commission for Access to Information says it has only received one report on this subject and it concerned the leaders of an organization and not the political authorities. Ultimately, no breach of the law could be proven.
The newspaper however, noted several examples where the government is informed and intervenes in questions sent to ministries. The fear is that the cabinet decides what information can be made public based on partisan interests.
Media requests that go through the Cairo office
In May 2023, in the midst of a scandal at the Société d’assurance automobile du Québec, our Parliamentary Office discovered that nearly 40,200 registrations for the new government authentication service (SAG) of Quebec ended in “failure” when citizens attempted to validate their identity with the SAAQ. There was a problem with the accents on certain letters.
Alongside this report, questions were asked to the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs. A few hours after sending the email, our journalist received a text message from the spokesperson and director of communications for Minister Éric Caire.
- Listen to the interview with Jean Louis Fortin, director of the Quebecor Investigation Bureau on the microphone by Alexandre Dubé via
:
“Hello. We will get back to you with details on your request that you made to the MCN. I am in contact with them,” said Nathalie St-Pierre.
Astonished, the journalist replied: “Ah, OK… It was a request for the ministry. I understand that there is no separation of powers with the cabinet.”
In response, Mme St-Pierre wrote: “I didn’t see your request, just a text from my Dcom […] I asked for the details, I’ll get back to you.”
“Let’s make sure the cabinet knows that Quebecor is looking into this”
In 2022, we sent a media request to the Ministry of Transport for direction and data on the number of infrastructure projects.
“Everything will be submitted to Cabinet, as we always do.”, could we read in the email exchanges obtained thanks to the Access to information law involving the ministry spokesperson.
“Let’s make sure the cabinet knows that Quebecor is looking into this,” the assistant deputy minister also wrote to her assistant and senior advisor.
We then received an official response stating that the directive did not exist. But the emails obtained by our access request demonstrated that it existed, which sowed confusion as to the response to be sent. “The directive already exists… So I don’t really know,” wrote the communications director.
Radio-Canada also experienced a similar situation in 2020, this time involving the Ministry of Health. The journalists were trying to obtain public health recommendations made to the Executive Council, François Legault’s ministry.
They received the response that no documents had been found. However, through a request for access, they learned that not only did the document exist, but that the Executive Council refused to transmit it.
Following this report, the Ministry of Health admitted that the ministry intervened in discussions with those responsible for access to information, but “with rare exceptions”.
Heaviness
The Quebec Government Professionals Union (SPGQ) affirms that to its knowledge, media requests to departmental communications managers do not systematically “difurcate” towards cabinets. “But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that it could happen,” says its president, Guillaume Bouvrette.
Above all, he deplores a very tight control of information where everything must be approved at a high level by the Government Communications Secretariat which reports to the Executive Council. The cumbersome approval levels are an irritant.
“Even if you asked a ministry how many parking spaces there are in a given building and it’s trivial and easy, they’re going to have to have permission,” he says.
-With the collaboration of Nicolas Lachance