Governments are obsessed these days with amassing information, openly or surreptitiously, on their subjects or those of other countries.
They鈥檙e also obsessed with keeping secrets from the public on the assumption that their release would be damaging to the affairs of state or the public interest 鈥� which usually means embarrassing to governments.
We all know that the affairs of state involve some pretty shady deals and that governments think they alone can define the public interest.
What鈥檚 called freedom of information in some jurisdictions isn鈥檛 free at all: It can cost a lot in time and money. What鈥檚 called access to information, as in the Canadian statute, is a misleading enticement.
When that piece of legislation was introduced in the House of Commons, Pierre Trudeau declared that even before it became law, all government departments and agencies should act in its 鈥渟pirit.鈥�
Accordingly, I submitted a request for the prime minister鈥檚 daily appointments agenda. The reply was soon in coming: The PMO was not covered by the bill.
鈥淣ice try,鈥� Trudeau scrawled under his signature. So much for the spirit of a law that was supposed to improve the transparency of government.
Brian Mulroney, that master of hyperbole, declared on the eve of his first election, that government files would be open 鈥渙vernight鈥� when he assumed office. They weren鈥檛, of course, and the bureaucracy was locked away from public view even more than it had been.
Even when the bureaucracy took its obligations seriously, politicians made a joke of them.
Michael Wilson, as finance minister, refused to sign the release of documents approved for release by his deputy. Wilson claimed that the papers must have been blown off his desk by 鈥渁 big wind.鈥�
The delaying and denial of access has continued under successive governments. Suzanne Legault, the current information commissioner, said last month that there are 鈥渦nmistakable signs of significant deterioration鈥� in the system in the last year.
She reported that on many occasions, federal departments aren鈥檛 responding to requests within 30 days as the law requires or indicating that they need more time to handle them. It can take as long as three years for departments to acknowledge requests.
Harper campaigned, as honestly as his predecessors, to bring in open government as prime minister. Legault says flatly that his government is 鈥渂reaching the law.鈥�
Our information watchdog can bark, but she can鈥檛 bite. She can鈥檛 enforce deadlines or impose penalties.
It has been difficult enough to convince those who make policies and those whose job it is to carry them out that they should also be keeping the public aware of what they鈥檙e doing. It isn鈥檛, naturally, in their job descriptions.
And providing the personnel and resources to conform to a law that so often is regarded as a nuisance is probably a pretty low priority.
The veil of secrecy is pulled closest in the seat of democracy on Parliament Hill, where senators and MPs think that they鈥檙e entitled to spend taxpayers鈥� money in a way that they think to be no business of taxpayers.
Well, guess what? As the outrage over Senate expenses and allowances scandal shows, the public is demanding more accountability, even for trivial misdemeanours. The public interest is proclaiming itself, as it should. It can no longer be dictated by governments.
We might ask, in that spirit, why the government is spying on mining authorities in Brazil on behalf of Canadian corporations with financial interests there.
We might ask why the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is in on talks between federal and Alberta officials to set up a joint oilsands monitoring program when no other non-government representative is.
We might ask what government scientists know that we鈥檙e not entitled to know.
We might ask why the government is planning to spend $4.2 billion on an operation centre for Communications Security Establishment sa国际传媒, which is one of the Five Eyes of a global spying network.
If we ask these questions, we鈥檒l be told by a government that over-classifies information that some things must be kept secret for our own security, that truth doesn鈥檛 make us free.
Big Brother bears watching.
