Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 28/05) - The territorial government is overly secretive and will go to extreme lengths - including deceit - to shield information from the public, according to a sometimes scathing report released Wednesday.

Elaine Keenan-Bengts: Public officials have a "visceral reluctance" to release information... -

Public officials have a "visceral reluctance" to release information, which often means citizens and reporters are unfairly denied access to government documents, Information and Privacy Commissioner Elaine Keenan-Bengts wrote in her annual review.

"Access to information continues to be a challenge, especially from some government agencies," she said. "More than that, the explanation often given for refusing to disclose (information) appears to be 'because we can.'"

Keenan-Bengts reserved her harshest comments for the former Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, which was halved earlier this year to create Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI) and Environment and Natural Resources (ENR).

After an appeal from Yellowknifer, Keenan-Bengts recommended RWED provide the newspaper with a list of companies that received loans from the taxpayer-financed Business Credit Corporation.

The department made a last-minute about face and dismissed the decision, a move Bengts called "disingenuous."

Under the Act, recommendations from the commissioner are not binding and the government is free to disclose which ever documents it chooses.

"This kind of response cannot be allowed to hijack the system," Keenan-Bengts warned. If public officials continue to ignore recommendations "the Act could loose all effectiveness and the Privacy Commissioner all respectability."

Keenan-Bengts called on the government to make recommendations from the commissioner binding, something Premier Joe Handley said he would have "reservations" about doing.

"We have differences of opinion on some things," Handley said Wednesday. "We would have some concerns with not having the opportunity to review a decision."

Handley disagreed with the notion that the government is secretive and said cabinet would have an official response to the report within four months. While access to information laws vary across the country, most give government officials wide latitude in deciding which documents to release. Provinces like Ontario have directed officials to disclose as much information as possible - something that rarely happens in the NWT, Bengts said.

"Where discretion is provided in the (Access to Information) Act, that discretion is inevitably used to refuse disclosure without any apparent thought being given to the possibility access should be granted," she wrote.

Meanwhile, some public bodies have become too loose with information, Keenan-Bengts said. She pointed to the case of health care worker whose private medical history was passed around the office and eventually landed on her boss' desk.

Keenan-Bengts called the disclosure "wholly inappropriate" and said she was concerned bureaucrats had access to medical records and had no qualms about circulating them.

"I was very surprised that the management team responsible for the privacy breach simply could not understand the concerns of the complainant or of this office," she wrote.

Handley said the government has taken steps to prevent the unauthorized release of medical records. "It is a problem when documents are released that should not be made public," he said. "We must be vigilant to make sure this does not happen again," he said.

Keenan-Bengts did say the government has accepted some of her recommendation, though most were done only in part. In her annual report, Keenan-Bengts also criticized the federal government for plowing ahead with legislation that could erode the privacy rights of Canadians. She pointed to a proposed law that would require internet providers to keep detailed records on customers, including their screen names and surfing habits.

The legislation would be "absolutely unacceptable" before the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the New York City, she said.

"Instead of reconsidering the necessity of such draconian measures, however, governments have instead expanded security programs."

Keenan-Bengts handled 24 requests to review government decisions in 2004-05, more than double the previous year. The bulk dealt with the Finance and Justice departments. If the government does not accept her recommendations, members of the public can challenge the decision in court.