The Nova Scotia government acknowledged “Right to Know” week Friday by citing its ability to push paper above any particular fidelity to the concept that the people have a right to know what their government is up to.
Right to Know week runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 this year, and the province waited until the last working day before touting its administrative prowess in processing Freedom of Information requests. That’s about all the government has to hang its hat on, given that its devotion to the broader concept is, charitably, suspect.
In practice, the province – the elected and permanent government – has adopted, tacitly if not explicitly, a practice of withholding information pretty much at will.
Nova Scotia’s 27-year-old Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) Act includes a long list of discretionary exemptions – reasons why the government “may” deny access to information.
The drafters of that legislation intended for those exemptions to be applied lightly, in exceptional circumstances. This I know, because I was there in 1993 when the current act was written.
Over the years, that intention has been turned on its head, so that “may refuse to disclose” has come to mean ‘will refuse’ and so they do.
The Nova Scotia law is also deeply flawed by a toothless appeals’ mechanism. When the government refuses access to information, the first appeal is to the FOIPOP commissioner.
As an aside, Premier Stephen McNeil and others in his government have taken to insisting that the appropriate title is FOIPOP “officer” rather than “commissioner.”
This seems a rather petty diminution of the role, particularly since the implicit demotion corresponded with the former commissioner’s inclination to side with applicants and find that the government should disclose information it was determined to withhold.
Lest the premier’s office protest that the correct title was always “officer,” reference a 2015 news release from that very office promoting a panel discussion moderated by none other then “Nova Scotia Information and Privacy Commissioner Catherine Tully (since retired).”
When the government, as is its wont, ignores the commissioner/officer’s finding, the applicant’s final appeal is to the Supreme Court, an onerous and potentially costly undertaking that dissuades most, thus ending the process with the information in question safely hidden from public view.
This year, the province is celebrating its administrative proficiency, but in 2016 and 2017 it was bragging about its FOIPOP website.
“Nova Scotia is the first province to offer full FOIPOP (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) services online. Citizens can apply for government records and receive their responses though the Internal Services website,” the province proclaimed.
That’s the same website the government later claimed was “hacked” and went into a full-scale security meltdown until it was determined that a 19-year-old kid innocently downloaded a bunch of stuff from the site that the province didn’t properly secure to begin with. The once-acclaimed site still isn’t back to full functionality two years later.
Last year, the province recognized “Right to Know” week by announcing that the standing committees of the legislature would all be televised. Then came COVID-19, and Nova Scotia became the only jurisdiction in Canada to shut down its legislature and committees for the duration of the lockdown and beyond.
Pulling the plug on the legislative branch of government, where responsibility lies to hold the executive (cabinet and the bureaucracy) accountable puts a series crimp in the public’s right to know.
Right to Know was born in Bulgaria in 2002 and has grown into an international movement dedicated to promoting free access to government – public – information, worldwide. The Open Society Justice Initiative later established “Right to Know” principles, many of which seem obscure in Nova Scotia.
“Access is the rule. Secrecy is the exception!” is a key principle, somewhere.
“Making requests should be simple, speedy, and free,” is another. The province recently said it’ll cost Saltwire $12,600 to get government records related to the decision to appoint first a “review” into the April 18-19 mass murders, and later a public inquiry.
“The public interest takes precedence over secrecy,” is another of the principles that would also seem to apply to the above example.
The province may be a crackerjack at responding to freedom in information requests in the 30-days prescribed by the law. But all it is only measuring is administrative competence. The response may, or may not, include the information requested and experience teaches us that when the information is politically sensitive, it does not.
The true measure of government’s commitment to the public’s right to know is found in a principled commitment to disclose such information, regardless of political damage or embarrassment to the government. We haven’t seen much of that around here.
Journalist and writer Jim Vibert has worked as a communications advisor to five Nova Scotia governments.
