Alberta’s access to information watchdog has found the provincial government to be non-compliant with its own freedom of information rules. A new report from information and privacy commissioner Diane McLeod says Alberta’s government has implemented internal procedures and policies that allow government employees to wrongfully deny freedom of information requests. The report, released Friday, follows […]

Vancouver affordable housing advocate Rohana Rezel is six years into a freedom of information dispute with the City of Vancouver and Airbnb over data on short-term rental owners, but he says the issue has evolved beyond housing into a fight for “public transparency.”  Rezel filed two requests with the city under the Freedom of Information […]

Senior federal officials have been looking quietly for ways to bring together Canadians who don’t see eye to eye on the economy, immigration and social issues. With a general election looming, officials prepared to meet last November to brainstorm solutions to the problem of social fragmentation, according to an internal presentation drafted by the Department […]

The number of property tax accounts in arrears has risen sharply in St. Catharines since 2022, according to documents obtained by The Pointer through a Freedom of Information request. The disturbing increase aligns with the controversial hikes in municipal tax rates introduced by the current City Council. Residents of Niagara’s largest city were shocked in […]

The Ontario government is considering shortening the length of teachers’ college in order to address a worsening shortage of educators, documents obtained by The Canadian Press suggest. A freedom-of-information request on teacher supply and demand came back with research and jurisdictional scans the Ministry of Education conducted last year on the supply issue and the […]

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s governor on Friday sued the Des Moines Register over the newspaper’s open records request, asking the court to validate her office’s withholding of certain emails she claims are protected. A Register reporter submitted a records request in February to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office, according to the complaint. In response, […]

Ashley Dayer’s dream of winning a National Science Foundation grant to pursue discoveries in bird conservation started when she was an early-career professor with an infant in her arms and a shoestring laboratory budget. Competition is intense for NSF grants, a key source of funding for science research at U.S. universities. It took three failed […]

New York environmental workers who came with a warrant looking for Peanut the squirrel found the scampering social media star on a bathtub. His housemate, Fred the raccoon, was in a suitcase in a bedroom closet. Soon after the Oct. 30 seizure, both animals were euthanized and Peanut became a martyr – held up as […]

A judge has granted Alberta’s government its request to question the former head of the provincial health authority about confidential emails she is accused of keeping and sharing without permission, including to media. The government’s request was made last month when it filed for an injunction in the high-profile lawsuit launched by Athana Mentzelopoulos, the […]

Town of Caledon staff will be working to improve Caledon’s website in the coming years.  At Caledon Council’s April 8 General Committee meeting, Ward 2 Councillor Dave Sheen brought forward a motion asking that Caledon’s website be improved. “I’ve often come across stale, dated information or [found that] things are hard to find. I’ve heard […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Attorneys for two Tennessee inmates facing execution this year asked Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday to declare a reprieve until a judge determines the legality of the state’s new execution protocol. Executions have been on hold in Tennessee since April 2022, when Lee halted the execution of Oscar Smith just an […]

Peel’s supervised consumption site is no longer offering harm reduction services as of Tuesday despite an injunction granted by the Superior Court of Justice last week that would allow similar facilities to continue operating for the time being.  “Peel’s supervised consumption will NOT be providing safe consumption services or drug checking services past March 31, […]