In partnership with newsrooms around B.C. we tested 25 local governments with five straightforward freedom of information requests. When it comes to responses, we’d give the three North Shore municipalities a B grade.
When we filed our documents, the municipal staff were professional, friendly and helpful. But what came back showed varying and perplexing interpretations of how much info we were entitled see.
The city mayor’s meeting calendar was largely blotted out, while the other two simply censored names. The District of West Van wanted money for staff time to pull documents related to cannabis laws, while most others offered it up for free. The District of North Van couldn’t meet the deadline, they said, because they had to consult with third parties.
If this seems bad to you, you must stand in awe of the North Vancouver School District. An FOI request filed by our staff in March 2018 didn’t yield records until October 2018 on the eve of an election – and that was only after spurring from the province’s information and privacy commissioner. What came back was heavily edited, and some requests are still disputed 18 months later.
A major reason for this information bottleneck is that there are no consequences for governments that don’t comply with the act. And there is too much discretion on the part of the bureaucrats who respond to requests.
Sadly, we see little reason for hope we’ll ever truly experience “freedom of information” because government after government, regardless of party, always favours the opacity of the status quo once it’s their own butts they’re covering. Remember, it’s not us journalists they’re trying to keep in the dark. It’s you.
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