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Canada

shockedcanadian

(751 posts) Sat May 30, 2015, 10:05 AM May 2015

Freedom of information laws a poor match for secretive governments, advocates say

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freedom-of-information-laws-a-poor-match-for-secretive-governments-advocates-say-1.3093471

University of King's College journalism instructor Fred Vallance-Jones says he has often suspected governments are trying to thwart the spirit of access to information laws.

But it's rare, as happened in B.C. this week, to see a former bureaucrat actually come forward to claim he was told to delete messages someone else might want to see.

"I think journalists and others who use these acts are pretty sure that these things go on," says Vallance-Jones.

"But a lot of time you can't prove that the reason you got a response of 'no records' wasn't because nothing existed, but because perhaps the records were destroyed."