Interesting read... but hopeless to believe Stephen harper and the CPC would be open and honest

Accountability and Transparency: Harper vs. Trudeau

When Canadians learned last year that Parliament’s Board of Internal Economy operates in complete secrecy, many were incredulous. “It’s undemocratic,” they fumed.

Justin Trudeau agrees. His Private Member’s Bill proposes that all government data and information be made open by default, including the BOIE. This could shake old-style accountability to its foundations.

Trudeau did not invent the principle of Open by Default, nor is it new. It is part of the Open Government movement now being discussed in governments around the world. Even the Harper government’s Open Government website calls for the creation of a culture based on this principle.
But talk is cheap. Trudeau’s bill is noteworthy because it sets out a clear program to implement the principle, which would be enshrined in legislation. It includes significant new powers to allow the Information Commissioner to act as a watchdog. It also brings the issue to the floor of the Commons, where the bill could spark serious debate.

In case anyone has forgotten, accountability is the issue that brought Stephen Harper to power. After the sponsorship scandal, he promised to fix accountability, once and for all. It is instructive to contrast the two initiatives.

In 2006 Harper’s government passed the Federal Accountability Act, which established a list of new rules to curb illicit influence, including new spending limits for political parties and new limits on individual donations to parties.

In Harper’s approach, government sets the accountability rules that people will abide by; and it decides what information the public needs to apply them. Information is at the centre of this. It shines a light in places that otherwise would remain hidden—it creates transparency.

But because government makes the rules and controls the flow of information, transparency and accountability turn out to be highly selective. We only get to see the places that government wants us to see. Apparently, this does not include the BOIE.

READ MORE: http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2015/01/08/accountability-and-transparency-harper-vs-trudeau/#.VK7zmmx0zIV

Trudeau’s approach throws the doors to transparency and accountability wide open. In his view, data and information are public assets. To say that they are “open by default” is to say that they belong to citizens, and citizens have a right to access them.

If Trudeau’s bill is passed, a huge amount of information that is secret will become public, shedding light on all kinds of government activities that are now hidden. This, in turn, will change how accountability works by encouraging citizens to debate and discuss the appropriateness of these activities, rather than depending on government to choose the places, set the rules and supply the information.