Troubling news out of the Information Commissioner’s office, as Suzanne Legault says that the office is nearly broke, thanks to an increasing workload of 30 percent more complaints this year, plus budget cutbacks (and it will be even worse next year as the budget has to absorb staff salary increases). It makes one wonder about the state of court cases that the Commissioner is pursuing in the name of access to certain documents, and what it means to accepting or dealing with new complaints in a timely manner, especially if they are stretched to the breaking point as it is. Tony Clement, not surprisingly, had no comment about any of this, even though as Treasury Board president, he is the one who is supposed to ensure that there is Access to Information compliance in the civil service, which would make her far easier.
Tag Archives: Information Commissioner
Roundup: No breached ethical walls
Auditors from Deloitte appeared before the Senate’s internal economy committee yesterday morning, and revealed a couple of things – that yes, senior Partner Michael Runia did try calling them, but they didn’t tell him anything, thus preserving their “ethical wall.” Also, their audit operated in a closed system and that there wasn’t any way for there to be any leaks of draft copies. But when the Liberals on the committee tried to move a motion for Runia to appear to explain himself, Conservatives on the committee blocked it, saying that they didn’t have the expertise to conduct an investigation parallel to the RCMP’s. Nor has there been any call for Senator Gerstein to appear to explain himself either. The Liberals will be moving a motion in the full Senate next week to give the committee the mandate to pursue these questions, but we’ll see if there is enough support. Kady O’Malley finds three key points from that testimony, and makes the relevant connections to the Wright testimony in the RCMP ITO. Incidentally, PMO has hired three different law firms to deal with the ClusterDuff file.
Roundup post: Citizenship guide preview unveiled
The government is updating their citizenship guide, and while people are going to criticise it, I’m going to say that it’s a good thing that they actually devote a page to the fact that we’re a constitutional monarchy, and that they talk about the fact that Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada. Not enough people realise what living in a constitutional monarchy means, even though it’s at the very heart of our political system. It would also be nice if we could stop acting horrified every time this government points out that basic fact because guess what – we’re a constitutional monarchy, and it’s actually a pretty good system. (It’s also too bad that the reporter in this story referred to Elizabeth II as the “Queen of England” – never mind that there hasn’t been a Queen of England since 1707). As well, they’ve done a pretty good job with the paragraph on the rights of gays and lesbians in this updated guide. Of course, it’s too bad that they’ve also included other bits of politicking with their references to human trafficking, polygamy and marriage fraud – current bugaboos of the government.
Roundup: Apparently successful pipeline lobbying
Access to Information documents have shown that the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association was pushing for the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act that went through in the fall omnibudget bill. They note, however, that the provisions strengthen the environmental protections because they’re all under one review now, rather than spread out.
Service Canada employees around the country have made random house calls to EI recipients to personally invite them to EI interviews – a move that is being called “intimidation.” I suspect this will be conflated and rolled into the false “bad guys” quote and make the rounds during QP next week.