Freedom of information in Canada
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Freedom of information in Canada describes the capacity for the
Canadian Government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in ...
to provide timely and accurate access to internal data concerning government services. Each province and territory in Canada has its own access to
freedom of information legislation Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfa ...
.


History

By 1982, twelve countries, including France, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the U.S. (1966), had enacted modern ATI legislation. Canada's
Access to Information Act Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...
came into force in 1983, under the Pierre Trudeau government. In 1987, the Solicitor General tabled a unanimous report to Parliament, ''Open and Shut: Enhancing the Right to Know and the Right to Privacy'' which contained over 100 recommendations for amending the ATI and privacy acts. In 1998, the government would append a clause to the Access Act, making it a federal offence to destroy, falsify, or conceal public documents. However, the standards for document production and retention in Canada are still considered insufficient by many scholars. In August 2000, the Ministry of Justice and the president of the Treasury Board launched a task force to review the Access Act. The committee's report, delivered in June 2002, found "a crisis in information management" within government.
Université de Moncton The Université de Moncton is a Canadian francophone university in New Brunswick. It includes campuses in Edmundston, Moncton, and Shippagan. The university was founded in 1963 following the recommendations of the royal commission on highe ...
professor
Donald Savoie Donald Joseph Savoie (born 1947) is a Canadian public administration and regional economic development scholar. He serves as a professor at l'Université de Moncton. In 2015, he was awarded the Killam Prize The Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize ...
’s 2003 book, ''Breaking the Bargain'', argues that in Canada there is a reluctance to put anything in writing, including e-mail, that might find its way into public discourse. In the fall of 2003, John Bryden, attempted to initiate a comprehensive overhaul of the Act through a
private members bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in whi ...
, Bill C-462, which died on the Order Paper with the dissolution of the 37th Parliament in May 2004. A similar bill was introduced by NDP MP Pat Martin on 7 October 2004 as Bill C-201. In April 2005, the Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ (born May 8, 1940) is a retired Canadian politician who was Member of Parliament for Mount Royal from 1999 to 2015. He served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal gov ...
introduced a discussion paper entitled ''A Comprehensive Framework for Access to Information Reform''. On April 1, 2008, the Stephen Harper government shut down CAIRS, the access to information database. He justified this decision by saying that CAIRS was "deemed expensive, nddeemed to slow down the access to information." In response, Leader of the Opposition
Stéphane Dion Stéphane Maurice Dion (born 28 September 1955) is a Canadian diplomat, academic and former politician who has been the Canadian ambassador to France and Monaco since 2022 and special envoy to the European Union since 2017. Dion was Leader of ...
described Harper's government as "the most secretive government in the history of our country." In September 2008, a 393-page report sponsored by several Canadian newspaper groups, compared Canada's Access to Information Act to the FOI laws of the provinces and of 68 other nations titled: Fallen Behind: Canada's Access to Information Act in the World Context. In 2009, The Walrus (magazine) published a detailed history of FOI in Canada.


Federal

In
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, the
Access to Information Act Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...
allows citizens to demand records from federal bodies. The act came into force in 1983, under the Pierre Trudeau government, permitting Canadians to retrieve information from government files, establishing what information could be accessed, mandating timelines for response. Any exceptions to that right of access (i.e. information that is not disclosed) is limited and specific. That means that government departments cannot simply refuse to disclose whole documents or series of documents. This is enforced by the
Information Commissioner of Canada The Information Commissioner of Canada is an independent ombudsman and an officer of parliament of Canada who reports directly to the House of Commons of Canada and the Senate of Canada. The commissioner's work is supported by the Office of the ...
. In general, the types of information that can be exempted from disclosure include: information that could affect federal - provincial relations; information provided to the federal government in confidence by other governments; information affecting the safety and security of individuals; information that belongs to third party private sector companies; solicitor - client privilege and information that, if disclosed, could undermine the operations of government. This is not an exhaustive list. There is also a complementary Privacy Act, introduced in 1983. The purpose of the Privacy Act is to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by a federal government institution and that provide individuals with a right of access to that information. Complaints for possible violations of the Act may be reported to the
Privacy Commissioner of Canada The privacy commissioner of Canada (french: Commissaire à la protection de la vie privée du Canada) is a non-partisan ombudsman and officer of the Parliament of Canada. The commissioner investigates complaints regarding violations of the fed ...
. However, freedom of information commissioners often lack the resources to enforce accountability. Canadian access to information laws distinguish between access to records generally and access to records that contain
personal information Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
about the person making the request. Subject to exceptions, individuals have a right of access to records that contain their own personal information under the Privacy Act but the general public does not have a right of access to records that contain personal information about others under the
Access to Information Act Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...
. From 1989 to 2008, requests made to the federal government were catalogued in the
Coordination of Access to Information Requests System The Coordination of Access to Information Requests System, also known as CAIRS, was a database of freedom of information requests made to the federal government of Canada under the ''Access to Information Act''. It was operated by the Department ...
. The federal legislations do not apply to the provinces or territories however, these levels of government also have access and privacy legislations.


Provincial


See also

*
Freedom of information in the United Kingdom Freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom is controlled by two Acts of the United Kingdom and Scottish Parliaments respectively, which both came into force on 1 January 2005. * Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the "2000 Act") * F ...
*
Freedom of information in the United States Freedom of information in the United States results from freedom of information legislation at the federal level and in the fifty states. Federal level The federal government is bound by several laws intended to promote openness in government. ...
* Open data in Canada * Proactive Disclosure


External links


Access to Information ActOffice of the Information Commissioner of CanadaProactive Disclosure


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freedom Of Information In Canada Canadian journalism