Bid to narrow transparency law ‘a move in the wrong direction,’ info watchdog says

By Jim Bronskill Information commissioner Caroline Maynard says a federal proposal to narrow the scope of the Access to Information Act is a move in the wrong direction that could exclude “entire swaths of government-held records” from public scrutiny. Maynard makes the blunt warning in a newly published submission to the Treasury Board Secretariat’s latest review of the access regime. The department issued a policy document in March that set out possible changes to the Access to Information system and solicited feedback from interested parties. The policy paper acknowledges shortcomings in th…