Sebastien Togneri

While the RCMP has been called in to investigate a former ministerial staffer, the information commissioner details the filing system at Public Works.

If the doctrine of ministerial accountability was still recognized by this government, it would be tempting right about now to ask how many members of a minister’s staff have to be implicated in wrongdoing before a minister is held accountable.

The Canadian Press links two other members of Christian Paradis’ staff to the questionable handling of access to information requests. The Sun meanwhile obtains a five-year-old briefing book prepared for a cabinet minister in the Liberal government of the time, the contents of which suggest something similar might have been happening in that minister’s office at the time.

Last week, in regards to the matter of Christian Paradis and his wayward aide, the Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters that ministers are “responsible to Parliament,” which is to say that “if Parliament has any questions they can ask him in the House of Commons.”

Our Jonathon Gatehouse reviews the present state of our access to information laws in the latest issue of the magazine. Over the weekend, the Citizen’s David Pugliese did likewise at some length. So dire is our present situation, apparently, that government staffers struggle to speak publicly in complete sentences, and only then with a government lawyer at their side.