Ottawa

Closed government

Less than a week after Tony Clement announces the Harper government’s open government action plan, Tom Spears explains precisely how far the government has to go.

The Citizen asked the National Research Council a simple question back in March: What’s this joint study that you and NASA are doing on falling snow? The federal department never agreed to an interview. It sent an email instead, with technical details on equipment but without much information on the nature of the project. It never even explained the study’s topic.

Before sending even that modest response, however, it took a small army of staffers — 11 of them by our count — to decide how to answer, and dozens of emails back and forth to circulate the Citizen’s request, discuss its motivation, develop their response, and “massage” its text.

Democracy Watch wants the international Open Government Partnership to reject the Harper government’s membership.

See previously: Open to question

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