Suzanne Legault, Information Watchdog, Wants Mounties Charged

OTTAWA - An unprecedented Conservative bid to rewrite the law in order to retroactively erase the RCMP's mishandling of gun registry records sets the table for legislated, after-the-fact cover-ups of far more serious crimes, Canada's information commissioner declared Thursday.

In a damning new report tabled in Parliament, Suzanne Legault concluded that the practice establishes a "perilous precedent" of rewriting laws — one that could jeopardize the ability of authorities to prosecute electoral fraud or other government scandals.

Suzanne Legault warns MPs against raising access-to-information user fees

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault says she doesn't support increasing user fees for access to information requests, a proposal made by Conservative MPs at a Commons committee this week.

Canada's Access to Information Act allows members of the public to request government information from various departments. There is currently a $5 fee to make a request.

Legault told CBC News that increasing the cost is "not a good idea."

Info commish presses Parliament for tougher Access to Information Act

Canada’s federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, who recently said Parliament should be covered by the Access to Information Act and that the government is dragging its feet on openness and accountability, is stepping up her calls for stronger access laws and says the biggest issue in the federal government right now is “a lack of respect” for the current legislation’s timelines.

“What I see, which is of primary concern, is a lack of respect for the legal obligations in the act in terms of responding in time under the legislation. That is our biggest issue at the federal level, right now,” Ms. Legault told The Hill Times last week in a phone interview following the release of a consensus resolution by the country’s information and privacy commissioners at the Privacy and Access 20/20 Conference in Vancouver.

Ottawa takes a leaf from Ontario on freedom of information

Following in the footsteps of her Ontario counterpart, Canada’s information czar says elected officials should be subject to freedom of information legislation. She expects to issue an official recommendation to the federal government in the fall.

“(The current legislation is) no longer adequate in 2013. I think Canadians actually want to have high levels of accountability systems, for anywhere that their taxpayer dollars are being spent,” Information Commissioner of Canada Suzanne Legault said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Feds 'Not Transparent,' Says Information Commissioner

Canada's Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, says the current federal government is "not the most transparent" and that response to requests for Access to Information is now at a record low.

"We are at a record low in terms of timeliness," Legault told CBC Radio's Sunday Edition. "The percentage of information being disclosed is also low."

Info czars tell Conservatives to place ‘integrity’ at heart of information reforms

Canada’s federal and provincial information commissioners are calling on Ottawa to place “integrity” firmly at the heart of their open government strategy to help break down the soaring barriers to information access.

Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner of Canada, along with her 12 provincial and territorial counterparts delivered the message to Treasury Board President Tony Clement this week in a detailed letter that lays out a series of recommendations on opening up government.

Clement is the federal Conservative minister behind the so-called Open Government initiative, and he’s the Ottawa politician most closely associated with using social media, especially Twitter.

But it is Canada’s three-decade-old Access to Information Act — a law many users say has come to embody the exact opposite of its title — that is the focus of a six-page letter to Clement.

The commissioners say it’s time to reverse the alarming backslide in access that has led to information actually being released in less than one in five requests filed under the law.

They urge Ottawa to adopt “increasing public integrity” as one of its “grand challenges,” and spend more money to clear backlogs.