Government Operations committee  “Open by default” is a great slogan, isn't it? The fact of the matter is that “open by default” has often translated into “open except for any material that falls within certain exemptions and exclusions”. As you know, the exemptions and exclusions in the Access to Information Ac

Government Operations committee  I can speak to that. You're absolutely right. The funny thing is that we got an Access to Information Act in the early 1980s because there was a recognition that in the United States more information was being made available, information that Canadians didn't have. In fact, one

Government Operations committee  I couldn't agree more. This is transparency about good government decision-making. If there is more transparency, if government is aware that it is being watched and if government is aware that people are paying attention, then chances are its decisions will be better. That's rea

Government Operations committee  Oftentimes it's to protect secrecy. As a small historical footnote, when we were talking about making government records available after 30 years, in the post-war period there was discussion in cabinet about this. One principal reason they didn't make it 25 years was that men i

Government Operations committee  You point out, Mr. MacKinnon, that the Canadian Army whistle-blowing is an example of transparency. It isn't. That information about long-term care homes only came out because members of the Canadian Armed Forces went to the media. As my colleague Mr. Bron has pointed out, this

Government Operations committee  I don't think any province in Canada right now is actually doing it well when it comes to transparency, because all of these measures, whether or not they're whistle-blowing, or whether or not they're freedom of information, are essentially coming from the same source. They're al

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would also like to thank the committee for once again inviting me to testify on how the public's right to know has been compromised during the pandemic, and what can be done about that problem. I am a journalism professor at Mount Royal Univers

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. Actually, I would encourage this committee to also look at a study that was done in the seventies on the issue of corporate concentration in Canada. There were some very good recommendations in that study about the need for greater disclosure on the part of corporatio

Government Operations committee  I think Mr. Cutler is absolutely right. We need to have a broader conversation about the issue of corruption in this country. We need to have a broader conversation about the issue of accountability in this country. We need to protect those who are best-positioned to blow the whi

Government Operations committee  That's actually a really good question. No one, really. I think that's a crying need in this country—it's a crying need. I think if we had more information about what was going on in the private sector by the public sector that would help too. One of the things that I would en

Government Operations committee  I think we're too sensitive to the needs of third parties when it comes to access to information requests. In most cases, we're talking about government information that the public has a right to know about to a greater or lesser extent. I think we're often too obsessed with priv

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Government Operations committee  I think we need to have a real substantive discussion about cabinet confidentiality in this country, which we didn't really have when the Access to Information Act was being debated, at least not in a fulsome way. What we're essentially saying is that Canadians have no right to k

Government Operations committee  I would say let's have that conversation, but I would also say that in a lot of cases we're simply talking about embarrassment here. It's funny. The reason for secrecy is actually the same reason as the need for information. Because if people have information, then they have cont

Government Operations committee  Thank you so much.