Liberal promise and the reality are not the same

[Merry]

In her last week in office, Canada's information watchdog is accusing the Liberal government of reneging on its promise to bring a new era of openness to Ottawa and of failing to defend the "Charter right" of Canadians to quick and easy access to federal documents and data.

"The government is sliding into more secrecy and actually not delivering on its promise," Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault said in an interview. "I think it is having a bit of a conflicting reaction, with its open government initiative and its pro-active disclosure on one side, and on the flip side, the way it is administering access to information in a reactive manner. Disclosure rates are down with this government, surprisingly."

After her appointment in 2010, Ms. Legault went through a number of public and legal battles with the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Ms. Legault said she had high hopes after the Liberals won the 2015 general election with a promise to define government information as "open by default" and bring Canada's access regime into the digital age.

However, she said the reality has been different. While the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau spent much of its first year in government consulting Canadians on a wide number of topics, she said her views were never solicited before proposed amendments to the Access to Information Act were tabled last year.

"Bill C-58 is a bill for the bureaucracy, it's definitely not a bill for transparency," she said of the proposed legislation now in front of the Senate. "The government has made some amendments to the proposed legislation, but it is still regressive in many respects."

Ms. Legault laments the fact the legislation would allow the government to refuse to respond to requests that are too vaguely defined, stating that goes against the principle at the heart of access to information. In addition, she said that challenging government decisions and obtaining documents would take longer under the proposed system.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/po ... e38060282/

This is just one more example, in a long line of examples, of how the Liberal image does not match the reality of Liberal Government.

[GordonH]

^^^ some may wonder why I've always compared politicians to snake oil salespeople. Because politicians always try to sell a bill of goods to the voters, voters tend to buy it hook line & sinker.

[Catsumi]

The pretense of being an "open" government is what a gullible populace believes to be so.

I hope anyone who can read will have a look at what the retiring Information Watchdog is trying to tell us.

There are many dark goings-on in the Liberal regime that needs bright daylight