FIPA is calling on Premier Christy Clark to call back the Legislature to amend election legislation the BC Court of Appeal has just declared unconstitutional. The government made a number of changes to the Election Act during the spring sitting, and then referred those changes to the Court of Appeal for an opinion on their […]

BC FIPA filed an Intervener Factum on August 15, 2012 in the Reference concerning the constitutionality of amendments to provisions of in the Election Act, RSBC 1996, c. 106 regarding election advertising by third parties. BC FIPA argues that there should be a minimum spending threshold to trigger provisions in the Act requiring third parties […]

There has been a lot of discouraging news on the FOI and privacy front recently as a raft of new legislation introduced in the last couple of weeks undercuts the law protecting our FOI and privacy rights. All four bills have been criticized by provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham in an unprecedented barrage […]

In today’s Vancouver Sun, FIPA’s Executive Director Vincent Gogolek teams up with Michael Vonn of the BCCLA and Shannon Daub of the CCPA to push back against the BC Government’s election advertising ‘gag law.’ Meant to keep big money advertising out of election campaigns, the law misses the mark, and ends up crushing small spenders […]

Election advertising law doesn’t just limit big spenders – small spenders get tangled in complicated rules that undermine democratic debate. Instead of re-introducing controversial “pre-campaign” limits, the provincial government should focus on fixing other problems in BC’s third party election advertising rules – problems that created a chill effect in the lead-up to the 2009 […]

Jack Layton’s response on behalf of the NDP to FIPA, CTF, and Newspapers Canada question regarding the party’s position on access to information reform. New Democrats are committed to improve the Access to Information system through a variety of measures that include increasing the powers of the Information Commissioner, speeding up the processing time of […]

BC FIPA sent a list of questions on freedom of information and privacy issues to the NDP leadership candidates. We received responses from Adrian Dix and John Horgan which you can download below.   Adrian Dix’ response (pdf). John Horgan’s response (pdf).

A current trend by politicians and bureaucrats to embrace electronic ‘Open Government’ initiatives may not empower citizens to demand the specific information they want, says FIPA’s new Executive Director, Vincent Gogolek. Rather, it may divert government from making long-overdue improvements to Canada’s Access to Information system. Gogolek appeared before the Standing Committee on Access to […]

Dean Beeby Ottawa- The Canadian Press Jan. 09, 2011 A new study ranks Canada dead last in an international comparison of freedom-of-information laws – a hard fall after many years being judged a global model in openness. The study by a pair of British academics looked at the effectiveness of freedom-of-information laws in five parliamentary […]

A report from BC’s Auditor General says that the province has not established an effective process for monitoring the security of its information. A software tool called Security HealthCheck that monitors security policies, standards and practices has been introduced across government ministries, but the AG found that its implementation is seriously flawed. Self-assessments by more […]

A new study has found that BC’s third party advertising rules caused extensive problems for “small spenders” such as non-profits and charities during the 2009 provincial election. The rules – brought in through the controversial Bill 42 in 2008 – led to widespread confusion, wasted resources, anxiety and self-censorship among organizations that spent little or […]

Heritage Minister James Moore accuses ‘radical extremists’ of opposing his proposed copyright legislation. FIPA’s Vincent Gogolek wonders if the minister is one of the mysterious ‘Agents of Foreign Influence’ cited by CSIS director Richard Fadden – certainly he’s under the influence of American cultural industries, their lobbyists and possibly the U.S. government. Open Letter To: […]