As the transparency stopwatch ticks down to the January 31st deadline for departments and agencies to post summaries of all completed Access to Information requests, a quick check of the government-wide ATI portal reveals that, while momentum may not yet be described as "building," the master list of participating agencies is slowly but steadily getting longer.
As the transparency stopwatch ticks down to the January 31st deadline for departments and agencies to post summaries of all completed Access to Information requests, a quick check of the government-wide ATI portal
reveals that, while momentum may not yet be described as "building,"
the master list of participating agencies is slowly but steadily getting
longer.
Over the last two weeks, the following entities have been added to the list:
Canada Council for the Arts
Canada Revenue Agency
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Canadian Space Agency
Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
Fisheries and Oceans
Library and Archives
Public Safety Canada
Public Service Labour Relations Board
It's worth noting that, with just three weeks to go,
only a third of the 150-plus organizations that will be subject
to the new rules are currently in compliance, with the PM's own
department, the Privy Council Office, among those whose absence may become
progressively more conspicuous as the day of reckoning bears down, at least for those of us who are keeping track.
Then again, it's fair to say that there was a wee bit of initial confusion over the initial January 1st deadline as announced, with mild to moderate fanfare,
by Treasury Board President Tony Clement in mid-November. As it turned
out, it was really just the official kick-off of the 30 calendar day
countdown before the first round of reports would be due --a
deadline-within-a-deadline, if you will.
So far, there also seems to be little conformity -- or, to use a GoCism,
'common look and feel' -- in the format, with some departments, like
Citizenship and Immigration, providing months -- and, in the case of Treasury Board itself, years -- of records for public perusal, while others, like Public Safety, appear to offer only those returns processed during the thirty days before their first report.
In any case, as far as the most recently listed organizations go, the
one most likely to prove fascinating to those who enjoy vicarious
strolls down memory lane would almost certainly be Library and Archives,
which frequently fields queries from non-journalists -- historians,
genealogists and other researchers -- hoping that the contents of the
country's collective crawlspace may shed light on an all but forgotten
subplot from the distant past, particularly those that involve national
security, real or ostensible?
After all, how else could one find out that there is no record of a security file on the late Globe and Mail sports columnist and Harold Ballard biographer Dick Beddoes, or any files at all
related to Cuban president Fidel Castro's 1959 visit to Canada -- or,
for that matter, on "CSIS dealing with "Wages Due Lesbians"?
In any case, I'll keep you posted on further developments. In the
meantime, head on over to open.gc.ca and savour the accountability
already in progress!
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