Vaughn Palmer: Parties flip-flop on FOI as their fortunes changes
Credit to Author: Stephen Snelgrove| Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:21:14 +0000
VICTORIA — The New Democrats complain the B.C. Liberals are filing too many requests under freedom of information, “bunging up” the system and wasting millions of dollars.
The accusation was levelled during question period in the legislature on Monday by the new minister in charge of FOI, Selina Robinson.
“It’s been quite an interesting couple of weeks to learn a new file,” said Robinson, appointed minister of citizens’ services following the resignation of Jinny Sims.
“You know what I learned?” asked Robinson, who is also minister of housing and municipal affairs. “I learned that the number of FOI requests received has jumped by over 30 per cent since we formed government and that has primarily been driven by increased requests by the Opposition.”
This provoked the Liberals to fury, as it was intended to do. They had been challenging the NDP’s growing practice of sending out invoices in the thousands of dollars to cover the cost of responding to FOI requests.
But Robinson wasn’t finished.
“The Opposition has filed 7,500 requests. Ministry staff have expressed concern about the thousands, thousands, of open-ended requests being filed in a way that is very costly.”
The work was piling up to such an extent that staff were hard-pressed to respond to requests from other, more deserving, applicants.
“It is harder to provide timely service to the journalists, to other groups, to people who have decisions that are affecting their lives that are made by this government,” claimed Robinson. “The (Liberal) requests are bunging up the system.”
They are also using up financial resources at a time when Finance Minister Carole James has ordered reductions in discretionary spending.
“It fact, it costs $23 million — that’s what it costs the system for their requests — $23 million,” said Robinson.
“When I think about how many schools, how much bike infrastructure that could cost. … When I think of all the other things that British Columbians have been needing, I’m appalled at their track record — just pie in the sky, ask for everything under the sun and then expect it to be free.”
This drew a quick response from Liberal Jas Johal.
FOI requests are supposed to be processed in confidence and at arm’s length from the NDP political apparatus by non-partisan public servants.
Yet Robinson seemed to know both the number of requests filed by the Liberals and what it was costing to process them.
“How do you know where the FOI requests came from?” Johal challenged the minister. “Who told you?”
The New Democrats had figured it out from the generalized information provided by the FOI bureaucracy, said Robinson.
“We get a report that says in which area we’re getting requests — whether it’s from individuals, political parties, organizations,” she explained. “Based on the volume of requests, it is really clear that it’s the Opposition who’s putting in these regular requests.”
She then consulted her briefing notes again.
“I think it would be really helpful for the house to hear that we released almost 1.9 million pages of documents last year. That’s pretty impressive.”
In their Opposition days, New Democrats waxed eloquent about proactive disclosure, where information would be released to the public without the bother of anyone having to file FOI applications.
But now Robinson was consumed with the prospect of all the work that went into vetting each of those almost two million pages.
“What that means is that 1.9 million pages are reviewed and ensured that we’re able to release those documents,” continued the minister, turning the exercise into a teachable moment for the whole house.
“I want you to think about what all that means — to gather that all up, to print them all off, to PDF (portable document format) them, to go through them to make sure that the redaction happens that’s appropriate. That’s a significant amount of time.”
And to what end?
“Again, $23 million has been spent because the people on that side are going for a fishing expedition. It’s more expensive than Painter’s Lodge,” she complained, referencing the high-end fishing resort in Campbell River.
“We care about building schools for people. We want to make sure that there’s child care. And the people on that side would rather go fishing.”
Lately, the New Democrats have sought to block information requests from the Liberals for back channel emails from ministers, officials and political staff.
The government tried to persuade the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to disallow the requests for emails as “frivolous” and/or a threat to personal privacy.
But when that effort failed recently, they decided to go public with the complaint that the Liberals were abusing the system and wasting public money and staffing time.
Which is not how the New Democrats used to play these exercises when in Opposition.
Back then, they mounted their own fishing expeditions and fulminated about delays, non-responses and hefty invoices from the government side.
Then, they said the public could rest assured that the NDP would respect the system and make it better.
But as they say on both sides of the legislature, that was then and this is now.
The New Democrats, after two years and counting in government, have yet to implement most of the FOI reforms they promised, while getting good at avoidance and delay.
Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals, once masters of frustrating information requests, are setting new records for filing them.
vpalmer@postmedia.com