Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 18/00) - The GNWT's Information and Privacy commissioner wants the Financial Management Board to clean up its act.
Elaine Keenan-Bengts said the FMB is too secretive because of its unwillingness to release information to the public.
"FMB is the (government department) who consistently denies access to information and fights every step of the way to prevent any information from going to anybody for any reason," she said.
As the commissioner, Keenan-Bengts' job is to ensure government departments meet their obligations under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The purpose of the Act is to provide access to government information to the general public and to ensure personal information obtained by government agencies is protected from unauthorized use or distribution.
The commissioner says the FMB and a few other government departments have not been complying with the Act.
"There are one or two departments, and FMB is the worst one, who simply balk at every request for information that is sent their way and they take a very adversarial stand on it."
Keenan-Bengts is especially concerned about the attitudes of FMB employees because they control all the money.
"There are people out there who have concerns about the fact that FMB doesn't seem to want to let anyone know what it is they're doing and why."
"There are certain parts of the government who seem to think that secrecy is more important than openness."
The commissioner says she understands there are certain pieces of information that should remain confidential, but there are other documents that do not need to be kept secret.
"The fact of the matter is if they really sat down and read some of this stuff, they would see that there is really nothing in there that would hurt anybody to release it.
"It's a matter of picking and choosing and I guess they're just not prepared to do that."
Keenan-Bengts is also concerned about the protection of privacy of regular citizens.
"I am concerned that not a lot of people seem to appreciate how open our lives are to anybody and everybody, and how much information about us the government does have.
"People should really pay attention to who they give their information to and for what reason ... the government has a lot of information about us and we don't think about it because perhaps we are a little too trusting."
The commissioner believes the FMB's actions make the government look bad.
