Funding cutbacks and the current financing of the B.C. Freedom of Information process (1997-2000)
A report from the B.C. Freedom of Information and
Privacy Association (FIPA), February 2000
Chapter
One - FOI Cutbacks and
the Campaign for Open Government
Chapter
Two - FOI Budgeting
Chapter
Three - Calculating the True Cost
Chapter
Four - Alternatives to FOI
Chapter Five - The Fiscal Value of FOI
Examples of government spending
Appendix - Members of COG
When the British Columbia
government passed its landmark Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy
Act (FOIPP) in 1993, it was widely hailed as the finest such statute in
Canada. Under the ruling New
Democratic Party, then-premier Mike Harcourt told the public that “fees would
not be a barrier” to accessing government records and their personal files.
For the first two years, say FOI observers, the system
worked fairly well. Politicians and bureaucracy were struggling to adapt to the
new culture of open government, but still determined to give it a try.
Then, perhaps inevitably, a chill set in as the government
was hit by an unprecedented series of embarrassments made possible by FOI
disclosures of information that would have been unthinkable in previous decades.
These included phone records from Harcourt’s office and internal memos that
suggested then-Premier Glen Clark misled the public by predicting a provincial
budget surplus instead of a deficit. (These records were then used as ammunition
in court by a citizens’ group seeking to topple the narrowly-elected NDP
administration for “electoral fraud.”)
After Clark took over as NDP premier from Harcourt in the
spring of 1996, the culture of open government was sharply reversed. At a
banquet with media present, Clark quipped to the effect of “If I had won the
battle in cabinet, we wouldn’t have Freedom of Information.”
Those who presumed Clark was merely joking may have been
disquieted by the final report (1998-99) of retiring Information and Privacy
Commissioner David Flaherty. Therein he wrote, “the media would have had to be
my ultimate defenders, as surrogates for the public, if the politicians and
government of this province had chosen to turn against the Act by, for example,
abolishing it. There have been times when I did not regard this as an idle
threat.”
But since cancellation of the Act was and is not a
realistic political option, say critics, the government instead reverted to
various means of seriously handicapping the FOI process. This included
sweepingly applied exemptions to disclosure, lengthy delays beyond the legally
mandated 30-60 day response time, and - most damaging of all - high search and
copy fees for records.
A Legislative committee was accepting submissions on
amendments to the FOIPP Act, but critics said the Clark government was treating
the committee as “irrelevant” by raising fees (through order-in-council) before
hearing its advice.
Dan Miller, the minister formerly in charge of FOI
administration, raised a furore in March 1997 when he complained that the
current FOI fee schedule is “an explicit subsidy to major media conglomerates.”
He asked, “why should the taxpayer subsidize research for Hollinger?” (Hollinger
is the parent company of Southam Press, published of the Vancouver Sun and
Vancouver Province.)
FIPA said Miller was off-base on at least three counts.
First, the media account for only
about four percent of FOI applicants. Second, the media (unlike many other
commercial users of the Act) serve the wider interest by providing vital
information which the public could not otherwise obtain. Third, the hardest hit
media would be not conglomerates but small community and alternative media who
can least afford high fees. Under
vocal protests, Miller backed down from his position a month later.
As well, local public bodies and professional associations
bitterly complained they had to bear the new “high” cost of their FOI
administration without any funding aid from Victoria. In 1996, the Union of B.C.
Municipalities passed a resolution calling for “full cost recovery” for FOI
requests, a move that would disenfranchise hundreds of requesters. A common
complaint was that FOI processing interfered with their work “helping the really
needy government clients.” The B.C. Law Society even asked the government to end
the exemption from fees for one’s own personal records.
B.C.’s minister for FOI management Andrew Petter had
claimed cuts would mean no loss in FOI service. But a major study by Prof.
Alasdair Roberts of Queens University (http://qsilver.queensu/~foi/)
dismissed the value to government of fee hikes. “It is clear that the revenue
increases that would be obtained through fee changes are negligible,” he wrote.
“Free increases are a method of cost-avoidance; they produce savings mainly by
deterring large numbers of citizens from exercising their access rights.”
As we shall see below, the B.C. government passed several
regulations which reduced the public’s ability to access information. Beyond
such directives, an entire negative change in political culture was conveyed
downward to the civil service by ministers. This gave rise to a vigourous
counter-campaign by open government advocates that blunted the government’s
aims.
In a memo of March 30, 1998 stamped Strictly Confidential,
Treasury Board chair Joy McPhail wrote to the Environment Minister: “During the
1998/99 budget process, Treasury Board and Cabinet approved changes to the
government’s organization and approach to FOI.
“After three years of experience with the FIPPA, it is
apparent that a disproportionate amount of personnel time is being devoted to
this area and a insufficient proportion of the total costs are being recovered.
Total FOI-related recoveries are approximately $50,000 per year, while the cost
to ministries has been estimated at $20.0 million.
In January 1999, Andrew Petter - the Minister of Advanced
Education, Training and Technology, which oversees FOIPP - wrote more
specifically: “Personal information requests (those provided free of charge)
constitute roughly 60 percent of all requests received under the Act. Last year
the government collected only $40,000 in fees for the remaining 40 percent of
requests while spending $21 million annually to administer the Act.... Access to
one’s personal information will continue to be provided without cost.” Other
applicants are charged only after the first three hours search time; in some
cases, fees are waived, generally when the applicant pleads an inability to pay
or declares to be working for the “public interest.”
(One might add that if the government complains that
“frivolous” FOI requests are costing too much, it always has the option of
applying FOIPP Act section 43, which bars “systematic and repetitious
requesters.”)
“To assist you in reducing costs and improving recoveries
related to FOI, while continuing to adhere to the requirements of the FIPPA, the
following measures have been developed. These will be implemented across
government ministries and the ISTA immediately: [All the measures deleted under
FOIPP Act sections 12 and 13, ie. Cabinet confidences and Policy advice.] If
your ministry recovers more than the requested amount, the excess may be used to
offset the reduction to your FOI budget.”
On April 7, 1998, then-Information Commissioner Flaherty
made an unprecedented public statement to warn of cuts of 60 percent in some FOI
offices. FIPA feared that these cuts could lead to a doubling in FOI applicant
users fees.
FIPA executive-director Darrell Evans said Treasury Board
had sent directives to ministries
to target their FOI offices for cuts instead of spreading the cuts evenly within
each ministry. “What other government program is having its budget cut in half?”
he asked. “This is clearly a surgical strike against FOI.” He added that some
ministers disagreed with this directive because their FOI offices were already
overburdened.
Troy Lanigan of the Canadian of the Canadian Taxpayers
Federation stated, “Even the CTF doesn’t buy this as a cost-cutting measure.
Complaints about cost are a smokescreen to deny citizens access to
information.”
In response in June 1998, Kevin Scott of FIPA announced
“the largest and most important campaign FIPA has ever organized - our Campaign
for Open Government.” This was an
unprecedented non-partisan network of more than 50 non-profit and professional
groups, and membership continued to grow in 1999.
Its primary focus was to rally all the users and supporters
of the FOIPP act throughout the province, and urge them to send a message to the
provincial government. “British Columbians are fed up with secretive
government,” its press release stated. “Public business is OUR business, and we
deserve the facts.”
As managed by Scott, the COG undertook many actions in the
spring of 1998, including:
·
The Campaign for Open Government Action Line (604) 878-4988
·
Fundraising (approximately $10,000)
·
Province-wide print and radio ad campaign. (At least $50,000 worth
of media space and time was donated.)
·
Provincial “Call in Day” to MLA’s in Victoria, June 30. More than
300 calls of protest were sent to Premier Clark’s office that day from a CoG
information display station at the Vancouver Public Library’s main branch.
·
An internet page with hot-links to provincial MLA’s: www.ilinc.net/bcfoi
·
The development of an electronic “action alert” network
·
Letter-writing campaign
·
Bulletin sent to all B.C. MLAs.
The Campaign is dormant now but could be reactivated at any
time.
Two months later, in a letter of August 13, 1998, the
Information, Science and Technology Agency (ISTA, the provincial government
branch that coordinates FOI administration) informed FIPA that “there has been
no decision made to increase fees related to the Freedom of Information and
Protection of Privacy Act.” ISTA added that it did not have up-to-date records
on budgets, budget cuts or proposed fee increases.
Then in the fall of 1998, the ISTA’s Chief Information
Officer sent memos to Deputy Ministers, “to implement decisions of Cabinet”
(actually Treasury Board, the cabinet committee that sets government funding
priorities) on fees; these changes were ordered to be effective as of July 1,
1998.
In October 1998, government ordered the FOIPP Act Policy
and Procedures Manual amended so ministries would “maximize” FOI fee collection.
Before then, fees falling below $50 were waived, but this practice was to be
stopped. All fees would be charged unless in the opinion of the head of the
public body there were “compelling reasons for not levying the fee.” (It was not
stated how “compelling” was to be decided in practice.)
In November, government ordered the Manual amended again so
that all requests for a fee waiver must be made in writing and state the
rationale for requesting it. An applicant claiming an inability to pay would
have to prove in writing that he/she could not afford the fee and this would be
subject to confirmation by the public body. Public bodies would have to consult
with the Chief Information Officer before waiving fees on “any other
grounds.”
In December, government ordered the Manual amended again so
to introduce an invigilation/staff attendance fee for supervising the FOI
applicants’ viewing of records. (This fee would fall under the category of
“producing a record” in FOIPP regulation, section 7.)
It is not clear how rigorously these three directives are
followed in practice; there have been no other such directives since then.
In November 1998, the Legislative clerk of committees
- on behalf of the Legislative
Committee reviewing the FOIPP Act - asked ISTA for a record of staffing levels
in FOI offices.
ISTA asked each ministry for their number of Full-Time
Equivalent (FTE) staffers budgeted from 1997/98 and 1998/99 estimates (it was
87.48 and 76.23 total, respectively), and the number of FTEs as of November 4,
1998 (70.03 total), in their information and privacy offices. The detailed
result, four months later, is attached in the Appendix. (ISTA maintains this was
a one-time survey, and it does not regularly keep such statistics.) Some
Ministries merged FOI offices as a cost savings measure.
It is very hard to tell which of the cuts ordered in
1998-99 had actually been followed. Almost all the cuts would be in Full Time
Equivalent (FTE) workers, since there is very little else to cut.
“Treasury Board has ordered wildly unrealistic cost
recovery targets for FOI offices (revenue to be generated from fees) and the
equivalent amounts have been pre-emptively deducted from their budgets.” wrote
FIPA’s Darrell Evans. As seen in the attached paper, the second column also
represents a form of “cut,” but as for the hoped-for recovery through fees,
these were nearly impossible to achieve and rarely were. Certainly the worst
fears of FIPA were not realized. (See FIPA’s 1998 annual report, appendix
H.)
The Campaign came too late to forestall the cut that had
been ordered in the 1998-99 budget, which was set by Treasury Board by September
1997; this was a FOIPP reduction of $1,927,000 and a FOIPP recovery of $981,000.
(Treasury Board has no such figures for the 1999-2000 year, saying the cut of
last year was an irregular event.) It is very hard to tell what degree of cut
ordered that year had actually been done, but we believe it to be about 10-20
percent instead of the feared 50-60 percent. Certainly the NDP’s hopes for fee
recoveries were grossly overstated.
Liberal MLA Geoff Plant believes the Campaign was “very
effective” in slowing the pace of cutbacks. It is hard to measure this
precisely, for one would need to compare the 1998-99 overall FOI budget with a
1999-2000 one. Treasury Board has told FIPA that it does not regularly gather
such figures, and has none for the 1999-2000 year; the 1998-99 survey of each
ministry - from which one could add up the reduction and recovery costs to a
total - was just a one-time effort for the FOIPP legislative review.
One ministry was hardest
hit, though. Children and Families which Petter says receives more FOI requests
than the entire FOI systems in some other provinces - had its Information and
Records Services branch (IRSB) cut back from 24 full-time equivalent workers
down to 14. But the government claimed that the number of FOI requests had
decreased by 28 percent from 1997 to 1998, so the cutback effect would not be so
severe.
This move partly led to the ministry’s FOI response time
backlog rising from two months to seven months, but the government recently
granted the ministry five more FTEs to help reduce the backlog. Most of the
requests are for personal information, especially adoption records. (There can
also be a seven month wait for personal welfare records at the Ministry of Human
Resources.)
On May 19, 1999 Petter told Plant in the Legislature that
there was no government directive to cut back FOI staffers or raise applicants’
fees in fiscal year 1999-2000. He also claimed that government FOI cuts last
year “have been achieved, for the most part, without reducing access to
service.” Petter said there are about 70 full-time equivalent FOI staffers
across government, the same number in November 1998. He added that he wanted a
process in which ministries generate plans or strategies that are submitted back
to ISTA; then ISTA would work with those ministries to implement those
plans.
Public concern was very evident. Among the 136 written
submissions and 116 oral presentations to the Legislative committee reviewing
the FOIPP Act, there were more comments on fees than on any other issue.
Fortunately, in its final report submitted on July 15,
1999, the committee recommended no cutbacks to the FOI process, calling FOI a
“justifiable expense” in a democratic society. Now did it advise fee increases -
despite submissions from many governmental bodies that had urged this.
For BC open government advocates, it has been a hard
struggle but one that has not yet ended. The government has no obligation to
heed the committee’s advice.
A report last year from ISTA offers hints that large fee
increases could be coming. But Petter has said that when changes to the FOIPP
Act are brought before the house, perhaps in 2000, he is not expecting large fee
increases. Petter also said a memo was sent out by his deputy minister to all
other deputies to develop a strategy on a ministry-by-ministry basis to promote
routine disclosure of documents.
Last November 7, finance
minister Paul Ramsey announced that in a dramatic contrast with previous NDP
messages - “spending cuts will begin soon” across government’s existing
programs, coupled with a freeze on new initiatives, all to meet its new stricter
deficit reduction targets. This would be done through Treasury Board orders, and
not debated in the House. Ramsey said more details on how much each sector will
be cut would come later, so it is not yet clear how this will effect the FOI
system.
This month, one senior government official told FIPA that
the FOI office conditions and morale have not changed noticeably since mid-1998,
FTE cutbacks continue across ministries generally, and that the three
cost-recovery directives of fall 1998 are still being enforced by government
(although it has abandoned the $980,000 recovery figure as impossible).
“The FOIPP Act was created to enshrine access to public
information as an essential democratic right, not a “user-pay” service,” wrote
Evans. “It was not meant to generate profits for the government; the taxpayers
have already paid for the creation of this information.”
The deeply indebted B.C. government is continually looking
about for ways to raise funds, and charging fees for previously public
information may ensure more (rather as the B.C Supreme Court Registry now
charges $8 to retrieve a statement of claim from behind the counter and 50 cents
to photocopy each page.) Are we to count ourselves fortunate that making an FOI
request is still free, unlike in Alberta, which charges $25 per request?
Governments often cite the unaffordability of FOI. Prince
Edward Island is the only province that has not enacted an FOIPP Act (although
one has passed second reading); government sources in Charlottetown and Ottawa
told FIPA that the primary reason is not a desire for secrecy but a simple lack
of funds to implement the Bill in this low-income jurisdiction. Yet even the
Yukon and Northwest Territories and Nunavut have their own FOIPP statutes and
processes.
There are no credible politicians who would seriously
challenge the value of open government today, at least in principle, despite the
real powershift this creates. The view as expressed by Vancouver Sun columnist
Vaughn Palmer has prevailed:
“The information that government generates at the people’s
expense is as much the people’s property as roads and bridges.” Flaherty put it
another way: “Freedom of information is a right equivalent to having open
elections, the rule of law, and access to public education. Does anyone
challenge the cost of holding elections?”
With the ruling NDP party’s state of leadership
uncertainty, and with its low ranking in public opinion polls, it seems unlikely
to bring in such politically unpopular measures as FOI cutbacks. But the future
is uncertain, and it is not at all impossible that the Campaign for Open
Government may have to wage the same struggles in the 21st
century.
There is apparently no budget for the FOI process set by
cabinet - neither across government nor by ministry; it is simply too small an
item for cabinet to micromanage. In the Spring, the Legislature debates each
ministry’s “Estimates,” ie. the projected costs for the next fiscal year. The
MLAs vote on high-cost program levels within ministries.
In the estimate book, each ministry lists 20 “standard
objects of expenditures.” The largest might in the billions of dollars and the
twentieth might be $20 million or so. (An exception is the Minister’s office
budget, which is smaller and traditionally listed first.) The FOI budget figure
- which one has to extract elsewhere - might be about $500,000 in a ministry,
hence much too small to be listed in the Estimates (it is absorbed under some
other larger item). There would not be the ministerial figures that one could
add up to a projected total FOI cost across government. (See also the Supplement
to the Estimates.)
The Public Accounts are a different matter; these are the
much more detailed figures of amounts spent in the previous fiscal year, if one
wishes to look backward. (The Estimates must be bought in hard copy for $22, but
the Public Accounts are online.) Here, the FOI cost for each ministry is
included, and one could add up the amounts for a total government figure.
Then how is the budget set? Generally, the FOI director in
each ministry prepares his/her "guesstimate" for what that FOI office will need
in the coming year, and in about September sends it up for approval to the
senior financial officer in the ministry (who is usually an assistant deputy
minister).
It must be remembered that the FOI office budget does not
only cover FOI requests, but the branch’s other responsibilities such as records
management; the percentage breakdown varies among ministries. As well, not all
FOI branches are distinct entities; some are subsumed in other ministerial FOI
branches.
The overall cost of processing FOI requests was a matter of
much debate and speculation in 1998, and the true figures is very hard to
ascertain. Then-Information Commissioner Flaherty described the government’s
figure of $20 million figure as “baloney”; one reason he cited was that the
government had also included the $3 million cost of running the Commissioner’s
office in the $20 million. Flaherty said of the FOI cost: “Is it $20 million or
$5 million? I said $5 million.”
FIPA agrees that the overall costs for handling requests
were greatly overstated, so we asked B.C. Auditor General George Morfitt for an
audit but his office was too overburdened to make more than brief inquires.
Flaherty said that Morfitt’s staffers found FOI budgeting one of the most
complicated subjects they had ever seen.
In January 1999, an official in Morfitt’s office told FIPA
that she had studied the cost issue and had found that the ISTA figure of $20
million, which was obtained by interviewing FOI directors (by far the most
knowledgeable officials on the subject), is broken down in an ISTA report as
follows:
·
$3 million for the Commissioner’s office budget. (Some dispute
whether this should be included in the cost of FOI.)
·
$3 million for public relations, “issues management” (ie. of negative news stories that emerge
from FOI requests, and for educating the public about the FOI process).
·
$14 million for ministry staff (ie. Primarily Director/Managers of
Information and Privacy [DMIPs] and their staff).
She explained that $11 million of all this was spent for
government program staff, ie. those who search for records, and she reported
that ISTA said the $11 million is not “new FOI program money.” ie. it is used
for staff people that would have searched for and given the public records even
if the FOIPP Act did not exist (and who in fact did so before it existed). This
$11 million should not be included in the “$20 million” figure.
Therefore, she concluded, if one excluded the $11 million
and the $3 million public relations cost from the $20 million, the entire FOI
cost might really amount to only $6 to $7 million.
(Monday Magazine’s news editor Russ Francis noted, “The NDP
government’s own corporate submission to the committee estimates the cost to
administer FOI for all public organizations - not just those in the central
government - as $30 to $50 million. That’s another highly questionable
figure. For one thing, it even includes the costs of spin-doctoring when a
reporter uses FOI to uncover an issue that needs managing.”)
She noted Mr. Morfitt’s interest in this subject, and she
had passed this information onto the groups that do performance audits. Her
office will receive with attention examples of government waste exposed through
FOI requests, but finds that such an indirect “savings” to government is hard to
quantify.
Critics say if the government really wanted to save money
on the FOI mechanism it would release far more information routinely, index
records more precisely, and cut back on its public relations branch (which costs
far more to operate than the FOI process).
The FOIPP Act was intended as an process of last
resort. “Governments are shifting
their responsibility to freely disseminate information onto the FOIPP Act, and
then blaming the act for the cost of their own failure,” wrote Evans.
“Often information is released only after a long and costly
process of stonewallng and delay. And instead of releasing information as a
routine process, citizens are commonly told to ‘make an FOI request.’” (For
instance, a recent FOI request to see the minutes of B.C. Hydro’s board meetings
for early 1999 resulted in an incredible seven month response delay, because no
fewer than twenty Hydro officials in their turn wanted to vet and approve the
release.)
In her aforementioned letter to the Environment Ministry,
Ms. McPhail raised useful ideas for reducing the cost of the FOI process,
writing, “Your ministry should consider the following measures:
·
create a file for releasable information which can be released
outside of FOI
·
reduce the number of unnecessary records held in off-site storage,
and
·
the number of management layers required to approve FOI releases
should be reviewed and, where possible, reduced.
It is not known if Ms. MacPhail’s worthwhile ideas have
been implemented, yet Flaherty said that ISTA’s chief information officer “is
trying to promote routine disclosure, but the ministries are fiefdoms onto
themselves.” Flaherty also urged the government to put many more documents on
the Internet to save printing costs.
The Auditor General’s official added that the FOI
processing cost is so high because government databases are extremely poorly
managed. Some are antiquated, and none were designed to retrieve records for FOI
requests. For government to change this pattern would be a huge short term cost,
she said - but FIPA wonders whether it would save money in the long run. The
Auditor General’s office would also prefer better statistical measures of FOI
function and costs, ie. the Request Tracking System (RTS) of ISTA is
insufficient.
(One reporter noted that “ministry representatives revealed
that they had no formal FOI search methodology and they had searched essential
archive boxes by skimming file tabs.” Vancouver Sun, Dec. 31, 1994)
Filing records in a more orderly manner not only assists
the FOI requester, but the government’s efficiency and cost for itself when it
seeks the information for its own purposes. This is another retort to those on
the committee who proclaimed themselves distressed at how much FOI requests and
searches cost the government.
Federal Information Commissioner John Reid was insistent on
the subject in a speech last November. “I cannot overstate the point: Information management in government is
in crisis. The crisis does not only threaten the viability of the right of
access, it also threatens to undermine national archival requirements and the
ability to deliver good government to the citizenry. Years of government
restraint and downsizing have been devastating to the records management
discipline.... The time is right, it seems to me, for an Information Management
Act, designed to regulate the entire life-cycle of government-held
information.”
Unlike the Auditor General - an independent officer of the
Legislature - an institution’s internal auditor may detect a problem and effect
justice, but decline to reveal the problem publicly and so lessen its
disciplining value.
The purpose here is not for the public, media, opposition
parties and others to displace the role of the Auditor-General (though there is
nothing wrong with supplementing the labour of that overworked office), but to
send a clear message via the FOI process to the bureaucracy that any public
spending could be publicly exposed at any time. As Russ Francis noted, “How many
more fast ferry projects [with its $500 million cost overrun] and Skeena
Celluloses will never even be proposed for fear that their terms will be
revealed under FOI?”
Conversely, knowing the FOI Act is ineffective can induce
politicians and civil servants to spend in ways they realize the public would
never accept.
Regarding the “high cost” of administering the Act, the
following is a reminder to those who want to impose higher user fees to make the
FOI system “help pay for itself”: former federal Information Commissioner John
Grace in his 1995/96 Annual Report stated that the freedom of information
process often saves funds, because public outrage over wasted money (uncovered
via FOI requests) induces government to cut the waste.
The best example to date is surely the audit of Human
Resources Development Canada (HRDC) transition jobs program, which was obtained
and made public this year by a Reform Party MP under an Access to Information
request.
The auditors at HRDC took a random sample of only 459 out
of 30,000 projects worth about $1 billion for evaluation. They found that 80
percent of the cases did not have adequate documentation, 87 percent had no
financial monitoring and, in 15 percent, money was doled out without a completed
application form. After the news broke, auditors announced they are expanding
their probe to the entire program; if this small sample exposed this many
problems, a full probe might uncover staggering losses.
To anyone remotely caring about fiscal management, the
problems revealed are startling. One prosperous American firm said it would have
created jobs in the area without the HRDC funding it received, which it called
“icing on the cake”; a disproportionate number of the grants went to
government-held ridings; 44 firms which were handed millions of dollars have
either gone out of business or stopped their projects; in one project, the audit
noted, “some expenses are often claimed twice and jewels were claimed under
office furniture.” In response, funding criteria has been tightened and more
monitoring added.
From this example, one might reasonably phrase the issue
not so much as “Can we afford to have open government?” as “Can we afford not to
have it?”
In his 1996 book on the Canadian military Tarnished Brass,
author Scott Taylor reports: “In several cases, an access-to-information
request, submitted with a detailed account of the alleged misdeed, has been
enough of a warning to force the generals named to make full restitution. By the
time the Defense Department releases the file to the requesting media outlets,
included in the file is a cancelled cheque indicating full reimbursement to the
Crown.” (p.91)
As well, in her 1994 book On the Take, Stevie Cameron
relates that when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney travelled to New York in 1985 to
address the United Nations, his large entourage included several siblings who
were not on official business and his wife, who spent nearly $2,000 on a rented
limousine for shopping trips. The bill was paid by the Department of External
Affairs, but soon after reporter Richard Cleroux made an FOI request for these
records, the PC Canada Fund (the Progressive Conservative party’s fundraising
arm) sent a cheque for the full amount to the ministry to cover the limousine
cost. “Amused officials passed it around, chuckled, recorded it and quickly
cashed it.” (p.210)
“Prompted by Cleroux’s requests for information, the
[External Affairs] task force scrutinized the bills for each member of the
delegation. Whenever a dubious charge was found, a task force member chased down
the individual and asked for payment.” (p.208)
These reimbursements from the PC Canada Fund (the
Progressive Conservative party’s own fundraising arm) for the Mulroneys’ high
travel expenses occurred several times - always after FOI requests were made
- and saved the taxpayer a fair
amount. Sometimes, however, governments withhold such records on taxpayer-funded
expense claims as being “personal” information.
(In his 1993-94 annual report, Grace wrote that these
events were the turning point in the Prime Minister’s attitude towards FOI;
personally injured by such requests, Mulroney disparaged the Act thereafter and
this message influenced his ministers and the civil service.)
Consider also the chair of the Canada Labour Relations
Board, terminated in 1998 after the media discovered through an FOI request -
and which a probe by the federal Auditor General later confirmed - that he had
claimed meal expenses that were five times higher than the standard civil
servant rate (eg. a $730 lunch for two in Paris). A comparable event has not
recently occurred in BC but it conceivably could.
There are many instances in B.C. of government waste
exposed by FOI requests, and it is important to note that the senior level of
government was unaware of some of the problems. These include:
·
The Sun obtained numbers from the health ministry through FOI,
showing that some of the highest-billing doctors were seeing as many as 80 and
90 patients a day. (Vancouver Sun, Nov. 23, 1994)
·
A finance ministry audit obtained under FOI confirmed allegations
by the B.C. Nurses Union that doctors at the Vancouver pre-trial services centre
were billing for many more hours than they had worked. (Vancouver Sun, Nov. 7,
1997)
·
MLA David Mitchell obtained data showing that the provincial
government was spending about $250,000 a month on public opinion polling, market
research, focus groups and customer satisfaction surveys. (Vancouver Sun, Nov.
18, 1993)
The Sun later noted that Mitchell’s FOI request for the
polls prompted several changes, both of which may have implications for
taxpayers. First, the Government Services minister announced that in future
ministries would routinely make public the results of all their polling (which
saves the costs of FOI processing). Secondly, the government ordered a review of
polling by crown corporations, because some ministers were surprised to discover
that the crowns were polling at twice the expense of the ministries.
·
Five locomotives that cost B.C. taxpayers a total of $2.5 million
were sold in 1994 for $65,000 after they were left for years unprotected and
forgotten in an open rail yard in Ontario, documents obtained under FOI by the
Sun show. “It was a complete waste of taxpayer’s money,” said the editor of a
train industry magazine. (Vancouver Sun, Dec. 7, 1995)
·
Documents obtained from the city of Surrey showed the city had
paid out more than $1 million in severance payments to city managers in the past
three years. (Surrey/South Delta News Leader, Oct. 25, 1997)
·
In September 1996, a parent in Surrey sent an FOI request to the
Education Ministry, asking to see government’s criteria for which high schools
would receive construction funding, and a list of the ten neediest schools. In
January, Premier Clark proudly announced $110 million in new construction
funding for 11 schools, all in government-held ridings and most of them not on
the list. The parent gave the list to the media, and a political storm ensued.
Not funded, although it topped the list, was Mcgee secondary school, in a
opposition-held riding. A few months after the story, Mcgee was granted funding
for a complete rebuild. (Vancouver
Courier, May 17, 1998)
·
The Hospital Employee’s Union released records obtained under FOI
which revealed that the former president of St. Paul’s Hospital was granted a
pension and severance package costing nearly $500,000, including two lifetime
pension plans that can be inherited by his wife. Hours after the release, the
B.C. Health Minister ordered an investigation, because she said the agreement
seemed to violate the government’s guidelines. (Vancouver Sun, Nov. 22,
1996)
All About Us Canada Foundation
B.C. Civil Liberties Association
B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
B.C. Journalists for Freedom of Information (BCJC)
B.C. Library Association
B.C. Press Council
B.C. Wild
Biosphere Monitoring Network
Canadian EarthCare Society
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Prof. Colin Bennett, University of Victoria
Cortes Island Forest Committee
David Suzuki Foundation
East Kootenay Environmental Society
Environmental Mining Council of B.C.
Granby Wilderness Society
Greenpeace Canada
International Law Education Foundation
Barry Jones, former MLA
Prince George Alzheimer’s Society
Sierra Club of British Columbia
Skies Above Foundation
Society Promoting Environmental Protection
Triad Society for Truth in Adoption
Trial Lawyers Association
West Coast Environmental Law Association
Yellowhead Ecological Association
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