The number of times National Defence has claimed that documents requested under the Access to Information law don’t exist has more than doubled during ...
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen · Postmedia News | Posted: 2 minutes ago | Updated: 2 minutes ago | 4 Min ReadA Traumedy of Life | SaltWireThe number of times National Defence has claimed that documents requested under the Access to Information law don’t exist has more than doubled during the last eight years.
In a statement to this newspaper, National Defence noted there were a variety of reasons why the public might be told no records could be found corresponding to their access to information requests. Such documents could have been destroyed because they were considered transitory records only required for a limited time, or the request could involve older documents that had been sent to the Libraries and Archives Canada.
In other cases the department’s responses strain credibility. For instance, National Defence claimed not a single document or any information whatsoever was sent to then Defence Minister Anita Anand throughout the four-month period covering the selection and announcement of the F-35 fighter jet in a $19-billion procurement deal.
Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard tabled her annual report to Parliament in late June, acknowledging what she called a “steady decline of the access-to-information system to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose.” In January 2019, this newspaper reported that, despite being warned what they were doing was potentially illegal and punishable by imprisonment, top military officers failed to disclose important documents requested under the access law. At one point, one officer acknowledged the attempt to claim the records didn’t exist might be discovered by the government’s watchdog, the information commissioner, according to records leaked to this newspaper.
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