I do not believe there is a culture of secrecy in the public administration of Canada. I've said this publicly before.
Are there pockets of resistance to disclosure? Of course there are. Are there some groups who plan to make it difficult for documents to be made available? Probably. I don't see it as a conspiracy. I don't think deputy ministers get up in the morning with the intention of violating the Access to Information Act.
We have a Westminster model of governance, based on cabinet confidence. Does it flow down the side of the mountain? Yes, of course it does. Every senior public servant doesn't want the minister to be surprised or to get caught out with information that he or she doesn't already have and can't explain. So there is a reflex in this system that has to be managed. That doesn't mean they cannot be more transparent. It doesn't mean the executive cannot support a regime of more transparency, more timely disclosure, more complete disclosure, and more proactive disclosure outside of the statute.
I reluctantly joined the debate on the so-called lack of disclosure about the detainees issue in Afghanistan just after Christmas. But it wasn't really an access issue; it was a communications issue. If we can get governments to more proactively communicate what they do.... Whatever their message is, it has to be verifiable through the access to information regime. So you can't communicate something as an executive and not allow verification of that message.
It's that dynamic that I was talking about in the quote I used. It's a continuum of sharing of information that renders everything more transparent.
I may sound Pollyannaish, but I don't believe there's a culture of secrecy. I believe there is some bad performance—and that has to be addressed.