Sears: Government secrecy hides corruption and covers for the incompetent. Why do we still allow it?

2022/12/20 Leave a comment

Good question. Imagine one of the reasons is the fear that media and others may focus more on the “gotcha” quote rather than a deeper read to understand more comprehensively the issues and interests at stake. That being said, I agree that the default should be openness, not the current opacity and delay.

Wonder if that was his position more than 30 years ago when working as Chief of Staff to then Ontario Premier Bob Rae:

Imagine living in a democracy where open access to everything politicians and governments say and do is automatically made public. Where everyone in public service knows that documents are public, unless you can make a persuasive case that a specific file impacts national security or personal privacy, among a short list of exemptions.

A fairy tale? No, Sweden. They’ve governed this way for well over 200 years, ever since King Gustav III staged a coup d’etat and instituted open government in the 18th century, as a means of revealing corruption in Parliament and the judiciary. Today, all Nordic countries have similar commitments to the importance of accessing information.

But this is Canada, where it seems every week we have another minister or official caught in a coverup. Recently, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc were almost insolent in their testimony before a parliamentary committee examining why the government had not investigated reports of political bribery by China. As Global News reports, LeBlanc “could not disclose whether he has been informed of ‘specific cases,’” while Joly “reiterated that both she and (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau were not provided specific information.”

This leaves Canadians with a very unpleasant binary choice: either they are not telling truth, or they are. The latter option begs the more worrying question: why were they not briefed?

Our performance on access to information would be laughable, if it were not so dangerous. One witness, a frustrated information seeker, claimed he had been told the delay in meeting his request would take up to 80 years. Needless to say, when decision-making is done in secret, we do not get better government.

The “Freedom Convoy” inquiry has already revealed the cost of government secrecy. That shambolic, finger-pointing circus showed Canadians in painful detail the efforts by many officials to hide information and pass the buck.

Then the inquiry into the failure of Ottawa’s LRT reported that former mayor Jim Watson and senior staff had been economical with the truth, hiding dozens of serious warning signals about the project. Another failure in secret.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith attempted to legislate a defenestration of Parliament and to govern by decree whenever she chose — an astonishing proposition also brewed in secret. The firestorm caused her to relent within days.

Finally, there was the clandestine decision by Ontario Premier Doug Ford to slice off chunks of the Greenbelt for developers, something he had pledged never to do. He reportedly had Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark meeting in secret with those same developers, which Clark denies. Ford must pray no one involved is revealed to have broken bread with him; those same developers had given tens of thousands of dollars to Ford in recent years.

As Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said, it “doesn’t pass the smell test” that developers would buy huge amounts of “permanently protected” Greenbelt land if they had not been tipped off. Secrecy encourages bad behaviour in private, too.

Our access-to-information programs have become a laughing stock, with years-long delays and costs to the citizen sometimes reaching thousands of dollars. For decades, bureaucrats and their ministers have told Parliament that a “lack of resources” is too blame. Really? Is that why the time taken to respond to each request is going up, and the percentage of requests fulfilled is going down?

Government secrecy produces bad government; gives a pass to the incompetent; encourages corruption in procurement; and enables legislation tilted to favour the rich, powerful and connected. As voters, we have rarely made loud demands that promises on freedom of information be honoured. Generations of politicians have lied about their commitments to “open government,” only to slide into deepened secrecy when in power.

It’s time we made it clear to the political class and our public servants that there will be consequences for those frustrating access to information. Sweden pointed the way centuries ago.

Source: Government secrecy hides corruption and covers for the incompetent. Why do we still allow it?

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Here’s a thought, what if governments weren’t so secret? MacDonald

2015/11/12 Leave a comment

Relevant article by Neil MacDonald given the comments by Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council and Head of the Public Service:

He [Himefarb] says secrecy is essential and, at the same time, greatly overused.

Ministers and officials, he says, need to be able to speak frankly.

HARPER-SWEARING-IN TOPIX

Former Clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himelfarb, right, administers the oath of office to new Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006 as then governor general Michaelle Jean looks on. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Around the cabinet table, he says, it may be that somebody wants to talk back to the prime minister.

“It may be that somebody there wants to say ‘I hate what you’re doing. This is terribly, terribly wrong.’ You want people to be free to say to the PM ‘that’s a pile of garbage’ and know that the opinion will not be leaked and used against the government later,” he says.

“It is important to have zones in which courageous advice can be given freely.”

That said, he acknowledges “we have inappropriately expanded the need for legitimate zones to a massive extent. They now include message control and avoidance of personal responsibility.”

No one actually owns up to that, he says. It’s a deeper, unacknowledged reality, down in the marrow of the culture.

Moreover, he says, the holders of the deepest secrets often become “absolutely convinced that they are not only working for the people, but that they are the best people to judge whether something should be secret.”

Generational shift?

Perhaps surprisingly, though, Himelfarb believes all of that is changing, and government must accommodate and manage what’s coming, or be overwhelmed.

WikiLeaks, social media, the advent of bloggers and citizen journalists determined to root out information, and a relentless 24-hour mass media are now arrayed against the old forces of mutton-chopped secrecy.

Bureaucracies at first react by shifting defences; they respond to WikiLeaks and access-to-information laws by ensuring less is written down, or by becoming even more controlling.

But Himelfarb, for one, believes we are in the midst of a generational attitude shift. Younger people expect — demand, in fact — to be included in the process of government between elections.

Many of Trudeau’s new ministers may well be inclined to grant that, given that so many are unschooled in governing. Their lack of experience is also a lack of baggage.

Some have worked outside government, Himelfarb observes, and may have even been victimized by government.

But ultimately, it’s the prime minister who gets to decide what those oaths taken at Rideau Hall will mean in reality.

If bureaucrats sense that loosening the flow of information to the public is not just OK but actually career enhancing, and that government’s boss of bosses wants more open government, open government will be more likely.

The trick, says Himelfarb, is to ensure that only those secrets that must truly remain secret for the proper functioning of government are shielded.

Perhaps. But again, the journalist’s view: Information is power. Politics is the exercise of power. Secrecy allows information, and therefore power, to be hoarded and preserved.

Source: Here’s a thought, what if governments weren’t so secret? – Politics – CBC News

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