Thoughts on BC Politics and More

A commentary by a former ­senior associate member of the University of Oxford. British Columbia’s Bill 9 does not remove the right of access to information, but it risks making that right harder to use in ­practice. That should concern anyone who believes government should be answerable to the public, not insulated from it ... ... delays are not, by ­themselves, a reason to ­narrow public rights. More often, they reflect under-resourced access offices, weak records ­management and outdated s­ystems. If government cannot process requests efficiently, the answer is to improve capacity, not reduce accountability ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Bill-9 could directly restrict how I do my job as an opposition MLA.  Freedom of information is one of the only real tools we have to figure out what government is actually doing behind the scenes. Press releases tell you what the government wants you to hear. The real story lives in briefing notes, internal emails, and reports that only come out when someone forces the government to hand them over. Bill 9 weakens that system. Right now the law says government must respond “without delay.” Bill 9 replaces that with “without unreasonable delay.”  That might sound like a small wording change, but anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy knows exactly what it means: more wiggle room to stall, more excuses, and more waiting while the government runs out the clock. The bill also lets ministries decide whether a request has “enough detail” before they even start looking for records. In other words, the government gets to decide whether your request is good enough to bother answering. ...

Conservative Interim Leader of the Official Opposition and Critic for Citizen Services and Caucus Chair Jody Toor, are calling on the Eby NDP government to withdraw Bill 9, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2026,warning it will further erode transparency and make it easier for government to hide information from the public. "Bill 9 is out of touch and unaccountable," said Halford.  "After Freedom of Information requests exposed tens of thousands spent on government gift cards, the NDP's response isn't to cancel the gift-card giveaway but to make FOI harder so similar programs don’t get out, that tells you everything about this government's priorities." Bill 9 would expand the grounds government can use to ask the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) to dismiss requests and would add new fees for records that should be proactively disclosed. Halford said Bill 9 fits a growing pattern of the Eby NDP ...

For more than 40 years, we have had a federal law on Access to Information (ATI) to permit the public to ask for government records. Hardly cause for celebration. After well more than 3,000 tries, mostly thwarted, I now view ATI as a different acronym: the government’s Arrogance Toward Inquiries, an Antagonism Targeting Investigators, with Administered Tricks Involved and an Ability To Ignore. I stopped ages ago keeping a running list of the federal records I thought I could obtain under the law that provides me the right to know—turns out, all along it’s been the government’s right to no ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

Rosalyn Bird, MLA for Prince George-Valemount and Critic for Citizens’ Services, has given notice of two bills to be introduced in the next legislative session. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act will ensure that British Columbians can engage with, and scrutinize, government operations. It will also reinforce trust between the public and government institutions, encouraging ethical governance. “The importance and relevance of this legislation cannot be overstated. In recent years, several recommended changes to Freedom of Information and Privacy legislation in BC. have been presented to the government through committee work and stakeholder engagement, with no action resulting,” said Rosalyn Bird. “When government loses its grounding in truth, transparency, and accountability, it endangers not only its legitimacy, but also the well-being, unity, and future of residents. Upholding these principles is not optional – it is essential for our province to thri...

An RCMP report, “Whole-of-Government Five-Year Trends for Canada,” was recently made public by CBC after Matt Malone, an assistant law professor at Thompson Rivers University, received it through a freedom of information request. Malone is the founder of the Open by Default project at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, which posts over 20,000 documents acquired by freedom of information requests. Frustratingly, the report is almost entirely redacted, even though it was supposedly compiled from open sources by the RCMP’s Strategic Foresight and Methodology Team in 2022. The scraps of the report that remain deal with six issues ... CLICK HERE for the full story

It’s been just over two years since the BC NDP government passed Bill 22, a controversial rewriting of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The bill brought in major changes to the FOI and privacy regime in this province, some positive (penalties for destroying records related to an FOI request) but many negative (imposing an application fee for the first time, eliminating the requirement for domestic data storage). The timing of the bill was also controversial. The government rushed it through in the fall of 2021. This was despite the fact a special committee of the legislature had already been established in June 2021 to carry out a review of the FOI and privacy legislation as required by law ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Artist rendering of the Nanaimo ICU. (Island Health) In November / December of last year I sent a number of emails to media contacts for Vancouver Island Health, as well as another who is well placed in Ministry of Health Communications.   I was looking for information on the November 22 announcement of a new ICU to be built at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.   In particular: I understand the formal request for the new ICU was made to the government in October 2017 -- are you able to elaborate on the process for how this is / was done, and who formally makes the request on behalf of the hospital (or is it Island Health which makes the request)? new government facilities usually have a three to five-year capitol plan created to prepare and develope the project, as well as the time needed for creating the business plan.  Based on this, preparation for the new ICU must have begun several years ago.   If not, are you able to advise when the business and c...