It's time for a more open government and an 'opendata.gc.ca'

Making as much government data available to the public as possible through a searchable online free of charge site at 'opendata.gc.ca' seems to be the current hip flavour for making transparent government happen.

PM Harper shouldn't have appointed Ouimet in first place

And as harsh as Auditor General Sheila Fraser's report was on Christiane Ouimet, it took too long to come to this conclusion.

Retreat behind the wire: only insiders need know

Expect more team-player replacements and less critical analyses of how Ottawa operates.

Long and short end: restoring faith, and ending interference and documentation letdowns

The Harper government has been engaged in aggressively fighting to cut back on mandatory record collection and record keeping.

Our right to know hits rock bottom

Canada is now consistently nearer the bottom on international openness ratings.

Getting at Ottawa's expenses in Transport Canada

This warrants a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee inquiry and an auditor general report.

House Access to Information Committee opts to play it safe

The real shame is that the House Access Committee has side-stepped and steered away from its earlier intent for a comprehensive review for 'stronger and more modern' access legislation.

Don't expect real changes in Ottawa's secretive ways

Talk of 'modernizing' Access to Information Act will not necessarily mean a huge increase in disclosure.

Transparency bar in troubled times: U.S. wants to open up, Canada wants delays

There's little thought to boosting the level of accountability and transparency needed in global economic crisis.

A crisis in information: there is still-secret hidden agendas and limited public access

Does the 'no-surprise' prospective coalition accord clause mean they agreed to even greater secrecy surrounding government operations? That's not entirely clear.

Say, whatever happened to Harper's promise to help public access government records?

His government inserted an upbeat clause about the duty to assist. But then it promptly looked the other way as access service deteriorated.

Dawning of the age of more secrecy in government

Canada's food regulatory system gets more secretive

On Olympic branding, it's much better to stick to the image of Canada in winter, and hockey players

A February 2007 memo calls for Ottawa 'to ensure that the event reflects the priorities of the government and helps to achieve its domestic and international branding goals.'

NCC discussed whether Claridge 'had abandoned the site at Le Breton Flats, as no work is evident'

How come Canada's information commissioner Marleau operates mostly behind closed doors?

Information Commissioner Robert Marleau and his officials have been holding secret meetings with the Department of Justice and Treasury Board to 'work together' to come to an agreement on how they can 'improve' certain features of the access process with

Deep-seated secrecy rules Ottawa, pitiful choices to zap, leak, and control

Fixing a broken access to information system is going to require more than tinkering and more than bringing in even more bureaucrats to manage information in order for real disclosure to take hold in Ottawa.

Prime Minister Harper's Tories are prying eyes under Canada's Privacy Act, circa 1983-2008

Two types of access: the influential lobbyist and the public´s

MPs should come forward with their accounts of what the 4,611 registered efforts by lobbyists targeting them are all about. The Access to Information Act doesn´t cover Parliament.

It´s a bumpy back road of access to information in Ottawa

Access to information has taken a back seat when it comes to unravelling Canada´s treatment of the transfer of Afghanistan detainees. It takes months of deceit, deception, and delay to eek out tidbits under access requests.