Right to information a human right
But maybe not in New Brunswick
An individual raised the question on this blog a few days ago about the lack of government transparency in New Brunswick. His main beef was that it was difficult (or I think his words were "impossible") to find out how a particular MLA or cabinet minister voted on a certain bill or motion in the legislature. So instead of complaining without knowing the whole story or facts, I decided to take a trip over to the New Brunswick government website to see what I could find or not find in this case.
So what did I find?? I have to tell you folks, much to my dismay, after surfing around for 20 minutes, all I was able to come up with was a link from the GNB site called Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick. After clicking all the links and viewing their site map, my search for a list of bills with the voting records contained within could not be found. As they say in the major leagues: STRIKE ONE!!
Well, judging from that frustrating experience, I can't believe I just didn't quit and cut my losses now while I'm still barely ahead. However, as the dedicated trooper for accountabilty and transparency in government that I am, I decided to soldier on. This time I decided to move my focus away from the accountabilty and transparency of members voting records and set my sights on campaign donations or finance to registered provincial party's during an election campaign. I decided to head over to Elections New Brunswick to see what I could find? More importantly, I was looking to see if I could obtain an online list of personal, corporate or union donations to political parties.
Egad!! Much to my dismay (once again), after clicking around links from applications to a special ballot to searches for DEC or RHA elections information, I came up seriously short and was unable to find any link whatsoever that led to the disclosure of financial reports by political parties. Nothing. Nada. And for the record, other provinces practice complete transparency wherein they make it easy for citizens to access financial reports from all parties and leaders involved in an election campaign. For example, I went over to the Alberta Elections site, and due to its simplistic set up, I was able to obtain the online financial reports of all the political parties within seconds. I you don't believe me, go click on any of the political parities then go to their annual financial statements (click Original) or final financial statement w/t list of contributors (click Final) and you will be able to retrieve the information you want. Pretty simple, huh. Anyway, when it comes to transparency on this sort of stuff in New Brunswick, as they say in the majors: STRIKE TWO!!
Anyway, I'm sure all of you are wondering why I am going off on such a tangent about transparency and the right for citizens to obtain government info. Well, for those of you who are unaware, today is the last day of Right to Know Week in Canada:
The RTK week is celebrated in Canada to promote the right to information as a fundamental human right and to campaign for citizen participation in open, democratic societies.You know what's very odd [again] when you click the RTK link above? It states in its opening salvo "that this page will act as the portal to gain access to all of the activities planned at the federal, provincial and territorial level. This may be done by clicking on the links found below."
Interesting. You know what's very peculiar about the links at the bottom of the page? If you guessed that New Brunswick is the only province that doesn't link to activities or information about access to information, you are right. You know why?? They don't even have a site dedicated to the Act and they don't seem to care about holding info sessions or activities to promote the RTK week. Even the Yukon has a dedicated site for RTK. Geesh!! I'm sure you know what's coming, don't you folks. Anyway, when it comes to the the promotion and accessibilty to information, as they say in the majors: STRIKE THREE!!! YOU'RE OUT NB!
Time for these guys [NB government] to take their seat in the dugout. They can keep the other world dictators company who don't regard freedom of information as a human right. Furthermore, if I was giving out marks on government transparency, accountability and grading their hopelessly outdated Access to Information Act, I would have no problems handing out an F in this particular case. Let me tell you, it's well deserved. Not to mention, I hear there are musings by certain so-called experts to make it more difficult for citizens to gain access to government info by raising the price to obtain documents (charging a high fee after searching so many hours). Shame.
4 Comments:
if the gov can't be trusted to be open and accountable, wee can always rely on the Irvings media to keep them honest. thanks god for the irvings.
Hey, that was me!:) I could have saved you some time, but I believe a couple of weeks ago I read on Charles website that there was some kind of program to get information out on the right to information. The few links I found had the right to information act, which is pretty short. It also let me know that there are two routes of appeal when your 'right' has been denied. The ombudsman, who has no power to force the government to do anything, or else taking it to court.
As for votes, I'm sure they could be found in writing at the legislature or in the library. However, in this day and age that is hardly good enough. I mentioned before that there were always continual 'glitches' so that I couldn't even recieve the minutes from the legislature. I'd get maybe one a week and they told me 'it must be a server problem'.
That IS possible, but virtually every government has the hansards right up online right away. It doesn't surprise me, for two years now I've been following what actually passes for legislation and it leaves a lot to be desired, so they aren't dumb in wanting to keep what goes on as anonymous as possible.
NBPolitico made an attempt to summarize the proceedings, if he had had an email I would have helped out, he finally got burned out and stopped doing it. Thats' why the first thing people do is get organized, you can't affect a change all by oneself (unless your Charles!), and government and industry has all the time and resources in the world.
Off topic I know, but this is exactly how I can tell STU is doing such a poor job with its journalism students. They produce almost nothing, don't even have a dedicated website. From what I can glean, they are simply workhorses for CBC. It doesn't take special training or much time to ask investigate simple questions, and following the legislature would seem to be a no brainer for a journalism student.
Sometimes it's hard to decipher whether a lot of info (and sites) are not available due to the overall ineptitude and sloppyness of government or if it's premeditatively done?
I think it's a combination of both.
No, its not ineptitude. It may be against your ideological beliefs, but governments are actually very good at what they do. The educational system, the highway system, security, health care and on and on all function quite well-when funded.
There's no doubt there are gaps and holes and problems and nepotism and on and on, but again, take a look at Canada and look at any african nation. Take a look at Canada now and take a look at Canada before the second world war. Much of this was from the growth of government and people's lobbying of it.
I would like to say they are just idiots and retards and so that is the reason why 'stuff happens'.
Far from it. Virtually EVERY government from every time in history has had its biggest enemy in its own population (just ask marie antoinnette).
So for example look at the Hansards. Each day, all the hansards from the legislature are mailed out to all the people on the mailing list. I was on the list, but like I said, I had to keep asking for back copies, and though they were friendly, they finally just blamed my 'server' for them not getting through.
Thats not the issue, perhaps it was my server. The point is that EACH day those are all sent out, much like Charles used to do with his blog. How's that for efficiency comparisons! Charles Leblanc is more high tech and up to date than the government!
Anyway, if you know anything about HTML or frontpage, then you know it would take approximately the same amount of time to put the hansards onto a web page and simply post it. It would take MAYBE ten minutes longer, but I doubt it because most of it can be automated.
When I asked why the heck they didn't do that, I was told 'it cost too much'. Uh, it cost a hell of a lot more to email X number of people with a file size of 1MB than it does to put up a page at the government website and tell people to go look at it.
Now, somebody may say, 'but they have the legislature on video so they aren't hidig anything'.
That's true, they aren't HIDING anything, they simply don't want to make it easy. For example, off topic a bit, but federally it is AGAINST THE LAW for media companies to televise committee hearings. I don't know what the law provincially is, but federally, media companies either have to show ALL the hearing, or none of it. And of course what media is going to televise 5 hours of blah blah. CPAC only.
But for NB, its far different televising things than leaving a printed record. Printed records can easily be accessed later, like say during an election. Television, well, you watch it then there is no way to re access it later.
So its far from stupidity. These guys aren't stupid, or at least like the George Bush case, even when they are stupid it doesn't matter, like I've said, government is the shadow that big business casts over society. And big business is not stupid. You think Irving wants people wondering why virtually every economic development legislation passed has to do with resources? Not likely. Irving wasn't stupid when he bought up all the media, that wasn't just a 'hobby' or a new industry he thought was a money maker.
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