Testing governments’ commitment to transparency

The Canadian Newspaper Association released its fourth annual Freedom of Information Audit. The report reveals what anyone who has tried to access information from Canadian governments and institutions already knows: just because you pay their salaries and fund their projects doesn’t mean many of them feel obligated to explain what they do. The Canadian International Development Agency wasn’t tested with access requests during the report’s research, which is probably just as well. The CNA likes to update these audits every year, and the last access request I made to CIDA, in April 2007, still hasn’t been fully answered.