John Horgan’s NDP government received an award recently, but it’s not one they should be proud of. The Canadian Association of Journalists handed them the Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy.
It was awarded because of this government’s efforts to block the public’s right to information through its new legislation that slaps a $10 fee on Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for government records, expands the data-linking powers of government and reduces oversight. The legislation even removes the Premier’s Office from the list of public bodies that are subject to FOI requests.
It’s incredibly frustrating to see this NDP government actively taking steps to make it more difficult for the public to see how government operates and makes decisions. However, I would argue that the changes to this FOI legislation are not the first time this government has been less than transparent with the people of B.C. Recently, they’ve tried to hide information on everything from data on seniors’ care during the pandemic to crucial wildfire recovery information.
It’s that last point that is particularly disturbing to me, especially when you consider how much our wildfire-affected communities have suffered. For people in places like Lytton, who have lost nearly everything, or the many ranchers in the Cariboo-Chilcotin who are still recovering from last year’s fires, information is all they’ve got.
I was shocked when the NDP Minister of Municipal Affairs recently had the audacity to ask my colleague, Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart, to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) so she wouldn’t share important wildfire recovery information with her constituents in Lytton. An MLA should not have to sign an NDA to find out what the government is doing to rebuild a community in her riding, nor promise to keep her constituents in the dark about what the government has been doing.
We’ve been through a lot here in Cariboo-Chilcotin in the past few years, and we’ve had our own share of struggles trying to get information on the government’s decisions and disaster response efforts. From fires to floods to road repairs and maintenance, people want to know why government approached these events in the ways that it did, and they want to know when help is coming.
Unfortunately, instead of offering people transparency and openness, we have a government that prefers to hoard critical information, putting up barriers to stop people from getting the details they need and deserve. It’s shameful, and it needs to stop.
newsroom@100milefreepress.net
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