Why Stephen McNeil won't fix FOIPOP rules

Catherine Tully sounds like a nice person, but does she know what shes getting herself into?

Nova Scotias new freedomofinformation and protection of privacy (FOIPOP) review officer starts work on Sept.8.She assumes an important role in a system thats badly broken, and which is beyond her power to fix.

Why should anybody care?

Simply this: Everybody in government is paid by us.Everything they do is supposed to be for our benefit.So we have every right to know, in detail, what theyre up to.

But lets face it: were all busy.Regular folks dont have time to dig around inside the bowels of government for information.

For that, we have specialists.We call them reporters.Or the opposition.Or academics.Or just a private citizen on a mission.

Theyre keeping an eye on our government for us, and they need the tools to pry information loose.

Nova Scotia had the firstFOIPOPlaw in Canada, in 1977.It was weak.A seriousFOIPOPlaw wasnt passed until 1993.Ever since, the provincial government has been trying, and failing, to live up to the laws promise.

It takes too long to get information.

Too much information is withheld.

The review office is badly backlogged.

And nobody can afford to go to court.

And yet the premier said last week that, as far as hes concerned, the system is working well.

No, Mr. Premier, theFOIPOPsystem is not working well.

Worse than in a developing country

The Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy, a world leader on information and media laws, last September said the Nova Scotia law has major problems and that it is significantly weaker than transparency legislation found in many developing countries. Ouch.

An environmental law group interviewed on Information Morning last week called theFOIPOPprocess cumbersome.

A local investigative journalist calls theFOIPOPsystem archaic and moribund.

At this point, the discerning reader may say, Hey, Steele, you were in Cabinet once: if the systems so broken, why didnt you fix it?

Good question.I want to confront it head-on, because the factors that held back the Dexter government from meaningfulFOIPOPreform are the same factors that will hold back the McNeil government.

When youre in the opposition, its so easy to criticize the government for not being open enough.Theres always something that, for one reason or another, theyre holding back.You say things like, If you elect us, we will run the most open and transparent government in Canada, because it sounds good, and you believe it.

Then you get into government, and suddenly opening up government is a lot harder than it looked from the outside.

First off, its a question of priorities.Nobody realizes, until theyre sitting around the Cabinet table, what a sprawling behemoth the provincial government really is.Its a $10 billionmonster with its fingers in a thousand pies.When you get there, the fish that need frying are many and large.You tell yourself youll get to theFOIPOPstuff eventually, but you dont.

Closed culture

Its also a question of complexity. The real problem inFOIPOPisnt the law, its the way its applied.The promise of openness in theFOIPOPlaw runs smack into a bureaucratic culture that values, above all, the avoidance of error. Culture, by definition, is almost impervious to change.It takes years, and plenty of resources, even to attempt it.

And yes, theres the question of political culture.Our politicians say that they believe in freedom of information, but they dont. What they really believe is that information is politically safer when its tamedand caged.

So our politicians make only superficial changes, and cry, Fixed it!

For the Dexter government, the superficial change was lowering the access fee.

For the McNeil government, the superficial change is appointing a new review officer.

But the last two review officers,DarceFardyandDulcieMcCallum, were fine and capable people too.

Its going to take a lot more than appointing a new review officer, no matter how well-meaning she is, to fix a system whose problems run so deep.Especially when our politicians, deep down, dont want it fixed.