Ombudsman, privacy boss call for more open N.B. government
Brian Gallant challenged by democratic observers and officals to make government more transparent
By Angela Gilbert :: CBC News :: 23 Oct 2014
Observers and officials are calling on Premier Brian Gallant to steer a cultural shift in New Brunswick’s civil service toward more transparency and less partisanship.
“Government secrecy that’s excessive is so dangerously undemocratic and unethical,” said Duff Conacher, founder of Democracy Watch.
“When governments operate in secret they do more wrong, waste more of the public’s money and make more decisions that are not in the public’s interest,” he said. “And those are all things that harm the public, communities, often the environment.”
The province’s Right to Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Ombudsman both say there needs to be a real change.
“Our government is an expression of our collective will to make changes in society and to provide services," said Ombudsman Charles Murray. "If we don’t trust the people doing that, we’re not going to effectively provide those services.
“No government can be successful when the citizens of it, don’t trust it.”
“I think from the very top levels of government -- and this has to come from the political masters at the end of the day -- there needs to be a willingness to be open and mature, in the conversation and admit, that sometimes government makes mistakes," said Murray. "Sometimes situations are bad. And sometimes the answers aren’t easy. And to bring the public into that conversation,” said Murray.
The focus on government secrecy and partisanship in the civil service follows on some recent revelations:
- A CBC News investigation showed communications officers withheld details on the severity of the situation when the government's main computer data centre crashed after an unexpected power outage;
- Former civil servant Jeff Patch went public with a op-ed piece, lamenting a continual increase in partisan hiring within the civil service since the 1990s.
New Brunswick’s Right to Information & Privacy Commissioner, Anne Bertrand, said transparency isn’t just about the Right to Information Act.
“Today the default should be disclosure, not protection. So this is a cultural shift. It’s a different way of doing business. And that is what is taking time.” she said in a recent interview about the state of transparency in the province.
“Everything shouldn’t be so bureaucratic and full of red tape and difficult. It should be that you can go and ask a question of a department and they’re going to answer you that question. That’s access. That is exercising your right to know -- a right -- and it is respected immediately. That is how that works.
"So government transparency is at all these levels, in every aspect of their affairs, development of projects, plans, where they’re going, as they decide to spend the public purse.”
According to a poll commissioned by CBC News ahead of the Sept. 22 provincial election, NewBrunswickers care more about transparency and integrity than they do about public education, taxation and shale gas.
Residents have been largely left in the dark by their government on some major undertakings. Both the previous Liberal government’s move to sell NB Power and the Alward government’s forestry deal were criticized over secrecy.
In an interview just before the election, Conacher said if there is to be cultural change, it has to come from the top, in tangible actions.
“The premier has to launch their government with a message that the normal response to requests for government information will be public disclosure. And the exception will be keeping things secret.”
“That is very influential. Training, as well, is important so that everyone would have to go through training on what is a proper response under the law, and that course would reflect the standard that transparency is going to be the norm and secrecy will be the exception.”
At the end of the course civil servants should sign a commitment to transparency, he said.
“I would specifically mention the lobbyist registry,” said Murray when asked about openness.
The province is only one of two in the country without a lobbyist registry.
“We have the capacity in our statute — the capacity to [form a registry] — it’s just a matter of that going live. And government needs to decide to do that and fund it for it to go live,” said Murray.
Bertrand said the government needs to give more disclosure, even when it could legally withhold.
“When there is public interest, when a topic has public interest of a very wide swath, our leaders should pull back and have a look. And say you know we can protect this information, probably lawfully, but should we? Ask yourselves that question. Should we? Given the amount of interest and concern that just keeps on coming? To me it’s just logical,” said Bertrand.
Auditor General Kim MacPherson’s most recent report called out three departments for a lack of openness or reporting in some areas. Social Development, Transportation and Infrastructure, as well as Government Services faced recommendations to step up performance measurement tools or reporting mechanisms.
MacPherson is looking at Government Services again since equipment failures at the Marysville Data Centre in June had significant financial and productivity impacts across government, to determine whether the circumstances around the unplanned outage should be included in her next report.
A recent CBC News investigation revealed new details on the outage after obtaining documents through right to information.
Michael Camp, journalism and communications program chair at St Thomas University, looked at some documents showing communications staff withheld important details which showed the extent of the IT crisis.
“[Civil servants] understand that or at least they feel they understand that there is pressure on them to make things look as nice as possible, to pretty things up, to conceal certain things to contain certain problems and to look at situations politically rather than to do what their actual job is, which is to inform the public in the most direct, open way, possible,” he said when asked what it would take to make a cultural shift in NB.
“What it would take, from our new premier, for example, is leadership on this issue. A direct message to those communications people that they are accountable to the public and that they should not think of their jobs in political terms.”
Bertrand said her office has handled more than 500 formal Right to Information requests in its four years, but that systemic issues are being worked through.
“Do I think New Brunswick is there in terms of being this model of open and transparency? No, we’re not there. We’re going in that direction. But I think in saying that I also want to respect the good that is happening. Because at the end of the day, we want to encourage. We take the good and the bad. Encourage the good, fix the bad.”
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