This province is famed for its fast, transparent access to information regime, born from the fateful decisions of a lame-duck government in the 2010s. Can the rest of Canada follow its lead?
Three people were selected for the job: Clyde Wells, who had served as Newfoundland’s premier from 1989 to 1996; Jennifer Stoddart, a two-time former privacy commissioner, first in Quebec and then federally; and Doug Letto, a retired journalist who had spent three decades at CBC News, most recently as senior producer for the province’s popular dinner-hour newscast,Mr. Wells and Ms. Stoddart declined interview requests, but Mr. Letto agreed to speak with The Globe about the process.
From the start, the committee knew it had to hold public hearings, Mr. Letto recalls. Bill 29′s changes had been government-driven; this review had to be the opposite. Over the summer of 2014, the trio received more than 60 written submissions and held 10 days of public hearings, in which it primarily heard from the two groups that most use access laws in Canada: the public and businesses.
“Heightened competition is not a harm that should be protected” by access law, Mr. Tilley wrote to the committee. As the hearings went on, Mr. Letto came to see a pattern appearing repeatedly: the government’s ingrained risk-aversion, and the intrinsic secretiveness that follows.
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