The province excitedly announced this week new measures for a more "open" government.
What they have in mind is an easier way for the public to access provincial information, thereby becoming more engaged in provincial decision-making.
To that end, they've set up two new websites and revamped a third at a cost of $750,000.
(Unfortunately, there still appears to be bugs in the system. When you click on "request data," what we presume to be a glitch reroutes users to the message "page not found." We're sure this will be cleared up in short order.)
With these new online sources in place, the premier has ordered the ministries to proactively post frequently requested information, like politicians' travel expenses.
And when an individual or media outlet is refused information and must resort to Freedom of Information requests (commonly known as FOIs), the premier has decreed that these documents should be posted online three days after the person who paid for it would have received it.
Yes, we said "paid for it." You see, the province charges for FOIs. And therein lies the rub.
Some argue that publicly releasing records which others have painstakingly sought out and paid for will discourage the media from making those requests - why pay to tip off the
competition?
And by not making such requests, the government is no longer held accountable. So... hiding information while appearing more transparent?
Nice bit of trickery if you're to believe people like Sean Holman of Public Eye Online, a one-man online news source on B.C. politics that routinely scoops much bigger media outlet by - you guessed it - filing frequent FOIs.
"This looks like an insidious attempt by government to reduce the demand for secrets that can only be revealed using freedom of information requests.
"And if you think that doesn't matter, think about this: how many everyday British Columbians will be willing to spend 40 hours or more a week, out of the goodness of their civic heart, filing requests journalists may no longer have as much of an incentive to file?"
The Information and Privacy Commissioner's office had the same notion, which was expressed while investigating complaints over BC Ferries's practice of making documents public at the same time as they hand it over to the individual they'd forced to go through the FOI process.
(FYI, BC Ferries is not known as a bastion of transparency... just sayin'.)
The office issued a letter stating that, although the practice doesn't violate individual right of access, it is "highly destructive to the purposes and proper functioning of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA)."
It goes on to detail that destructive power.
"If it is allowed to continue, it is easily foreseeable that many public bodies will bring in similar systems. If this is allowed to happen, many media and other requests for general information will lose their rationale, resulting in fewer requests, less scrutiny of public bodies, less information reaching the public, and ultimately, less accountable public bodies."
FIPA argued that the individual's right of access takes precedence over a general desire to put information out to the public.
"A fair and rational person would not expect a public body to issue news releases drawing attention to every posting of records released under FIPPA. This is further evidence that the intention of BC Ferries is not to create transparency or openness, but to prejudice the position of the requester vis--vis the rest of the world."
(See, told you.)
However, the commissioner, Elizabeth Denhma, warmly greeted the 72-hour delay between sending documents to individuals who ordered them and posting them online.
This is not a solution. We can think of an occasion when The Citizen paid $1,000 for documents that ran to hundreds of pages - such a disclosure took months to wade through.
In such a situation, there's no difference between making records public as they're handed to the media outlet or three days later.
The answer to this dilemma is to reduce the number of FOIs needing to be filed. The real issue is that governments are keeping documents secret when they should be made public to begin with.
And if there is question over access, and an FOI is needed (which should be rare if public disclosure rules were strictly enforced), the province should not charge for it.
We doubt we'll be seeing these new transparency measures anytime soon.
In the meantime, will this new initiative erode investigative journalism or increase public engagement? Only time will tell.
-- Prince George Citizen
