Conservatives Imposing More Of It's Own Special Kind Of Transparency

This Conservative Government got to it's position of power by running on a major idea: transparent and accountable government. As we have all seen so far, we haven't been seeing much of either transparency or accountability from this pitiful excuse for a party. Frankly the words "accountability" and "transparency" have become more of a punchline when talking about the Harper Conservatives than a mantra of good government. This has been on full display over the past few months, with scandals of the Conservatives own creation coming back to bite them in the ass.

You'd think that in a climate like this, the Conservatives would take a few steps back and do their absolute best to look accountable and transparent. You'd think that they'd be extremely careful about the optics of any kind of possible sneaky behaviour might have on a public image that they have always seemed to see as the most important thing. Yet, alas, they've gone the other way. They've attacked, smeared and tried to bully their way to destroy any kind of accountability and transparency that may remain in Canadian politics. They just don't seem to care, as they will just attack anyone who calls them on their bull as an anti-Canadian and plotting to get them. All the While wearing their tinfoil head wear, they try to play the victim card while they attack anyone with a legitimate gripe.

So today it was surprising, yet equally unsurprising to hear about a piece of news that broke from the Canadian Press about the Conservatives attempts to stifle the very thing that they were supposedly all about during that last election. The federal Conservatives have quietly killed the giant information registry CAIRS (Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System). This system, created in 1989 by the Mulroney Conservatives, is an electronic list of every request filed to all federal departments and agencies under the Access to Information Act. This system was widely used by lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens and was a strong tool used to hold government accountable. Hmmm... holding the Conservatives to account... it makes all the more sense why they would want to kill it. And kill it they did, as of April 1, with a notice last week to civil servants on the Treasury Board website, basically telling them that they don't have to update this system anymore.

Now, according to a Treasury Board spokesperson quoted in the Canadian Press article, the registry was killed because supposedly consultations showed it was not valued by government departments. Not valued by departments??? Wasn't this registry more for the public, the press, and other people, not the government itself? What do these Conservatives really think that they are trying to pull here??? What is happening to our democracy when this Conservative Government thinks that they can just shut the doors to the government of the people, by shutting down access points like these? British Columbia New Democrat MP Dawn Black was quick to point out the just what kind of hypocrisy this is on the part of the Harper Conservatives. She's quoted as saying the following:

"It's another example of the Harper government's talk about accountability and transparency – they talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk"

Is there really any disputing that at this point??? With more and more cases like these popping up seemingly every week, it's amazing how far Mr. Harper and his Conservatives have gone to betray what they ran on just over two years ago. The more that we see stories like these as well is that it makes that Conservative campaign slogan of "Standing Up For Canada" look like nothing more than a pitifully ironic joke at this point, and worse by the day. Do we need anymore reasons for bringing down this government and going into an election??? Mr. Dion and your caucus, what more do you need??? What possible constructive reasons would there possibly be for shutting this registry down and shut down the public's access to information? I'm searching for one, but have yet to be able to figure one out. This looks like a government and Prime Minister that is showing an increasingly anti-democratic and, dare I say, totalitarian streak to it. These are signs that we can't ignore at this point. Canadians deserve much better than this, and the only way to get that is have an election. This government needs to go, and each and every day that they remain in power is a day that more and more damage is done to this country and more importantly, it's citizens. This is the kind of "accountability" and "transparency" that we do not need here in Canada, and it's time to send that message and send it strong.Recommend this Post