Your Access and Privacy Online News Summary for Saturday, March 21st.
This week, we begin with a troubling pattern that has been unfolding across Canada.
What started in British Columbia with Bill 9 is now being echoed elsewhere: governments and political actors chipping away at access-to-information and privacy rights while describing those changes as modernization, efficiency, or administrative reform.
Taken together, it looks less like a series of isolated reforms, and more like a broader race to the bottom — one where secrecy expands, accountability contracts, and the public is asked to accept it all as reasonable housekeeping.
Let’s dive in.
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Writing: Shaun Fisk | Production: Patrick Farnsworth | Music: Breakmaster Cylinder
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Full Show Links
FIPA Bill C-4
- House of Commons E-Petition
- Bill C-4 Dashboard
FIPA Network Update
- People’s Consultation on AI
Race to the Bottom – Canadian Shifts
- We’ve had enough secrets’: First Nations group opposes Ontario move to limit freedom-of-information laws
- Ontario to make premier, cabinet ministers’ records secret as it tightens FOI laws
- Vaughn Palmer: Information commissioner wrong in denying an NDP culture of secrecy
- Canada’s three main federal political parties are working together to fight voter privacy rights
- Friday the 13th, 2026 – A transparency horror show
Canadian Access to information and Whistleblowers
- Environment committee engaging in ‘junior high behaviour’: former climate advisers
- Why Canada is helping Canadians flee the Middle East — and what it costs
- Town claims provincial pressure on wharf project
- 15,000-plus students regularly skip school across Manitoba, leaked documents show
- Ontario plans to open high-occupancy vehicle lanes to all outside peak traffic times
- More details emerge on pay of Manitoba trade representative in Washington D.C.
- Via Rail ‘needs to improve its service’ despite solid management: auditor general
- The RCMP vs. the media: Bracken trial approaches its endgame
Canadian Privacy
- Manitoba government proposes new grocery rules, rent control, some hydro hikes
- Manitoba bill targets technology that could alter grocery prices for some shoppers
- Most Canadians want to ban or regulate algorithmic pricing, poll shows
- Town confirms CAO’s departure
- Napanee council approves updated CCTV policy as camera network expands
- MD of Pincher Creek council briefs: Wildlife fencing concerns, invasive species prevention, social media policy
- Shootin’ the Breeze – https://shootinthebreeze.ca/
- Former local teacher a convicted sex offender
- Halton Hills weighs whistleblower policy
US International Access and Privacy
- Iran-linked hackers take aim at US and other targets, raising risk of cyberattacks during war
- Hundreds of migrants are vanishing in the Mediterranean. Authorities are withholding information
- A media-rating company says a Trump agency is threatening its livelihood
- As Trump pushes deportations, immigration data becomes harder to find
Before we go
- Tax scams are on the rise. Here’s what to know
FIPA Updates
- Access and Privacy Online in the Classroom