Accessing Democracy: The Critical Relationship between Academics and the Access to Information Act

Abstract

Parliament recognized the fundamental importance of protecting access to government information when it enacted the federal Access to Information Act. When the Act came into force on Canada Day 1983, Canada was just one of a handful of countries to have legislative protection of access to government information. Now, 27 years later, over 80 countries across the globe have enacted some form of access to information legislation.Although the world has followed Canada's lead in recognizing the importance of protecting access to government information, Canada has “fallen behind” (to borrow the descriptor used by journalist and author Stanley Tromp) and may even be “backsliding” (in the words of Laura Neuman of the Carter Center). What has gone wrong with the federal access regime? Why should legal studies scholars care? I address these questions in this article. I start by outlining the symbiotic role between academics and access to government information. I then identify three key factors that have contributed to the decline of the federal access regime: administrative resistance, legislative degeneration, and political indifference. Finally, I close by briefly discussing three ways in which scholars can continue to work to protect and promote access to information in Canada.Academics and AccessAcademics took the lead in advocating for access to government information in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada. One of the earliest advocates was Donald C. Rowat, a professor of Political Science at Carleton University. In a 1965 article entitled “How Much Administrative Secrecy?”, he summarized the key arguments in favour of protecting access to government information, writing Parliament and the public cannot hope to call the government to account without an adequate knowledge of what is going on; nor can they hope to participate in the decision-making process and contribute their talents to the formation of policy and legislation if that process is hidden from view.