'The exercise of the law to extract important information is often like panning for gold under a pitch-black sky.'
Credit where credit is due: The federal government took a baby step in 2019 to recapture part of the spirit of the law that permits us access to its information.
On short notice, I was invited to appear before the committee last week. I presented ideas based on my experience over three or so decades of filing more than 3,000 requests and managing newsrooms that have filed at least another 15,000.
The 1983 law permits people to ask for internal government records, but there are hundreds of exempted pockets of government and types of records, and the required 30-day responses to requests are often delayed by months, even years. Too many public servants have seen their role as protecting bureaucracy and political masters.
I can understand why politicians don’t wish openness. Even if the Pope has relinquished the concept of infallibility, even if pencil manufacturers attach erasers to their products, most politicians believe the admission of a mistake is fatal. The savagery of social media and even the judgmental responsible media doesn’t soothe their worries, either.
I told the committee that each government announcement or legislation should be accompanied by the release of the records that created them: The studies, the public opinion research, the internal and external correspondence, everything but the confidential cabinet discussion. Mostly these are records we have to hunt down many months later; there is little reason they can’t be released when the government initiative is unveiled.
I suggested a help desk could be established to assist requesters on how to find the records and phrase applications for them. And I proposed an arbitration panel to review the often extensive redactions to government records in its responses.
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