Stanley Tromp has updated his 2008 book, Fallen Behind: Canada’s Access to Information Act in the World Context.
From Stanley Tromp:
The first edition of this book in 2008 detailed how Canada’s Access to Information Act had fallen behind the rest of the world’s FOI laws. Since then, the problem has only grown far worse (enough so that the revised book could well be entitled Fallen Further Behind).
Fallen Behind cover page
In the authoritative Global Right to Information
Rating system of the world’s 128 national laws, Afghanistan ranks number 1,
while Canada – which ironically has so worked hard to transform that nation
into a modern democracy – ranks 58. Mexico ranks second, followed by (in order)
Serbia, Sri Lanka, Slovenia, Albania, India, Croatia, and Liberia.
In his preface to the new edition,
Halifax human rights lawyer Toby Mendel writes, “As someone who travels around
the world promoting the right to information, it is frankly a source of
profound embarrassment to me how poorly Canada does on this human right.”
Bill C-58 (which is now law) grants the Information Commissioner a barely adequate power to order the government to release records, and this is merely a baby step forward. When will the ATI Act ever be raised to accepted global standards? Canadians should insist upon answers.
