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(For publication)

The State of Freedom of Information

By Marian Scott

Toronto, Sept. 22, 2011How much did the director of your local hospital spend onexpense-account meals?

Are workers paid by your tax dollars allowed to log onto Facebook and Twitter at theoffice?

What are the details of a major bridge-repair contract awarded to a private company?

Under freedom-of-information laws, citizens have a right to know these things.

But in many cases, governments are still blocking their efforts to find out, according tothe National Freedom of Information Audit.

The acts are supposed to encourage accountability, said Fred Vallance-Jones, anassistant professor of journalism at the University of Kings College in Halifax whoauthored the annual report card on FOI in Canada.

But if the requesters cant get the information in a reasonable amount of time, then to

me, the acts arent performing their primary role, Vallance-Jones said.

The annual audit, funded by Newspapers Canada, is the largest and most comprehensivesurvey ofhow effectively Canadas FOI laws are working.

The 53-page report gives Charlottetown, Saskatoon and Manitoba top marks forresponding to requests quickly and fully, while handing failing grades to Winnipeg, SaintJohn, N.B. and the province of Quebec for holding back certain information.

Researchers supervised by Vallance-Jones filed 354 information requests on 40 topics atthe end of December 2010. At the end of five months, all requests that still had notproduced a decision were deemed to have been refused.

The requests were sent to 11 federal departments and agencies, 53 provincial andterritorial departments, 39 municipalities and 10 large hospitals across the country.

Seventy-three per cent of government offices responded within 30 daysthe limit set bymost federal, provincial and municipal access-to-information laws. One-quarter ofgovernment offices responded between 30 and 60 days after getting the request, while 2.5per cent of requests still had not produced results by the end of the audit.

This years results show that the system works better in theory than it has in practice,the report said. Attempts to access records to hold governments accountable become

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bogged down in long delays, demands for prohibitive fees and bureaucraticintransigence, it found.

Only 61 per cent of federal departments and agencies responded within 30 daysearningthe federal government a D for speed of disclosure. Still, that was an improvementcompared to last year, when only half of federal offices met the 30-day deadline.

Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Yukon and Quebec answered the fastest; all fourearned an A for speed.

British Columbia was slowestrated an F for answering only 13 per cent of querieswithin 30 days. The report noted the main reason B.C. took the longest to answer is thatits access-to-information law only requires a response within 30 business days, while thedeadline is 30 calendar days in most jurisdictions.

The audit also examined whether governments answered fully or held certain facts back.

Information requested included guidelines on personal or business use of social mediasites; copies of contracts awarded by federal departments or municipalities;communications budgets for provincial departments and municipalities; briefing notes forprovincial ministers; costs of medical treatments in the United States later reimbursed byprovincial health insurance; and credit card statements for senior hospital employees.

The most forthcoming provinces were Manitoba and Nova Scotia, which both earned anA for disclosure.

The most secretive was Quebecrated an F for refusing to disclose certain information.For example, Quebec refused to reveal travel costs for senior officials.

Ontario was the next most uncooperative province, receiving a D for disclosure.

Municipalities that scored highest for disclosure were Regina, Saskatoon, Montreal,Sherbrooke, Quebec City and Charlottetown. The least forthcoming city was Winnipeg,which refused to release a street-sweeping contract, claiming it was confidential.

Saint John, N.B., refused to provide its policy on use of social media sites on the groundsthat the city was not yet covered by theprovinces new Right to Information andProtection of Privacy Act.

However, Charlottetown, Moncton and Fredericton complied with information requests

despite not yet being subject to access-to-information legislation.

Fees are another deterrent to obtaining government information, the audit found.Saskatchewans Ministry of Social Services demanded a whopping $1,685.25 for stafftime and photocopies when asked to supply the deputy ministers credit card statements.

Cornwall, Ontario, asked for $461.74 to cover administrative fees and photocopies tosupply a contract for construction of a $23-million sports centre. The fee estimate

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included sales tax, even though FOI fees are not subject to tax, and staff time for makingphotocopies, which is also contrary to Ontarios FOI law.

Researchers requested copies of more than 50 government contracts for everything fromdental equipment for the armed forces to private mail delivery for Canada Post. Therequest tests one of the most important principles of Canadian democracy, that thepublic has a right to know how public officials are spending money and with whom theyare spending, the report said. It recommended that governments notify companies withwhich they do business that contracts are public information under access-to-informationlaws.

Vallance-Jones said the results suggest that government offices tend to answer FOIrequests more quickly when they dont involve controversial topics or come fromreporters.

But if these acts dont work where the rubber really hits the road, with requests from

media, requests from interest groups and lobby groups, requests from parliamentarians

and opposition members, then the acts arent doing what theyre supposed to do, he said.

Despite a refreshing openness about municipal contracts in Saskatchewan and

Charlottetowns continued willingness to release information even though it is notcovered by access legislation, the report concluded, there is still a lot to be done to makeCanadas access statutes work as citizens have a right to expect.