Our journalists share their horror stories with access to information, to obtain information that should be public and that you have a right to know.
• Discover our approach – Access to information: governments are hiding things from you
In November 2022, Radio-Canada invited comedian PO Forget to join in with the 400 French service executives gathered for its annual corporate event, called RC3.
Before this assembly, the comedian affirmed that the fee given “to a stranger to speak arrogantly about work demonstrates an alarming disconnection from the value of work.” We found it very funny, but we also asked ourselves a few questions. How much was the comedian’s fee? And that of the other speakers, notably the stars of the house, Rebecca Makonnen, Alec Castonguay and France Beaudoin? And the total costs of the RC3?
PO Forget
Photo provided by PO. Forget, courtesy of Michel Grenier
THE Newspaper submitted a request for access to information on the costs of the event at the end of February 2023.
The answer came two months later.
- Listen to the interview with Jean Louis Fortin, director of the Quebecor Investigation Bureau on the microphone by Alexandre Dubé via
:
In its letter and its document of around ten pages, Radio-Canada revealed the total travel costs of the participants for the day, i.e. $33,287.47.
Screenshot
The state-owned company, however, hid the amounts given to the speakers, under the pretext that their disclosure could “harm targeted third parties” and “hinder future contractual negotiations.”
However, the only right “impeded” here is that of access to the actual amounts given to the speakers. When a comedian’s salary becomes a state secret, the public has every reason not to find it funny.
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