MPs recently moved to delay proposed changes to the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct that include reduced cooling-off periods for lobbyists doing political work and more stringent rules for gift-giving. “I felt that the process was unnecessarily rushed by the commissioner… the two weeks’ notice that we were given in the kind of dying weeks of […]

OTTAWA — Reporters are abandoning the federal Access to Information Act as a research tool because turnaround times are terrible and getting worse, veteran journalist Dean Beeby told MPs studying the federal law. Beeby was among the media members and researchers who painted a sorry picture of the state of Canada’s access system Wednesday for a House […]

OTTAWA — The federal prison needle exchange program is failing because of a poor rollout by the Correctional Service of Canada and a lack of improvement since it was introduced four years ago, health advocates say. Inmates at nine of the 43 federal prisons have had access to sterile equipment for drug use since the […]

HALIFAX — Transcripts of calls between the RCMP and search and rescue officials in Halifax show an overall lack of understanding of what was required to have a military aircraft assist during the search for a gunman who killed 22 people in April 2020. Log and audio transcripts obtained by The Canadian Press under an access to information request […]

What is the BC Services Card? It’s an ID card that combines both the drivers license and the provincial health care card.   Is that all it does? Doesn’t sound too scary to me. Right now that is all it does. However, it is a key part of the ‘Government 2.0’ plan, which will link […]

BC FIPA sent its submission for the Customer Name and Address Information Consultation to Public Safety Canada today. FIPA outlines three main concerns with the CNA proposal. [T]he proposals go beyond maintaining existing powers in order to cope with new technology … [and] would actually lower the threshold currently required to obtain Canadians’ personal information […]

BC FIPA presented its comments before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Public Safety on the proposal to create a national identity card. [A] national ID card would be: hugely expensive; just as subject to fraud, privacy abuses, and security breaches as current systems of identification; and not likely to be more effective in preventing […]

Darrell Evans of BC FIPA gave a speech on Lawful Access to the Frontiers of Privacy and Security conference in Victoria today. Darrell highlighted some of the concerns that BC FIPA has with the direction that the Federal government is taking in the context of Lawful Access. FIPA’s view in a nutshell is that we […]

FIPA has submitted comments on the federal government’s Lawful Access Consultation Document to the Department of Justice, Industry Canada, and the Solicitor General today. The federal government initiated consultations earlier this year and BC FIPA hosted two workshops on the Lawful Access proposals and received input from over 45 groups and individuals that have helped […]