The currency plunge of information

Every reporter who comes to Ottawa is told: "information is currency" here in the capital. It's become a cliche.  I'm not sure the public agrees. 

Look at public reaction, for instance, to the ongoing controversy about disclosure of MPs' expenses. If I read the polls and the commentary correctly, Canadians want to know every single detail of where MPs spend their money. Anything less than full disclosure is unacceptable. 

We don't see the same reaction, however, at the repeated suppression of information here in Ottawa by this government. The fact that the Conservatives have moved this week to prevent staffers from testifying at committees is not stirring popular outrage, as far as I can see.  Hiding money, now that's one thing. Hiding information? Big shrug. Barbara Yaffe usefully links the two types of non-transparency in her Vancouver Sun column today. 

 Remember too, there wasn't any huge reaction when the government waited more than three months to even respond to a Commons order to produce Afghanistan documents. But proroguing Parliament? That did get the public riled, but again, a lot of the anger revolved around suggestions that MPs were being paid to do nothing. 

It's the money thing that gets people upset when it comes to politics -- information, not so much. So maybe that old cliche isn't all that accurate? 

Comments

[Aongasha]

I beg to disagree - the public cares about the money issue alright. But it also has recognized the partisan degradation of the committee system by politicians and Gotcha! journalists for their own ends. Hence they realise the committee system has been rendered valueless and ignore it. Don't believe me check the headlines outside of Ottawa and Toronto.

[geo]

Good grief.
The opposition is sounding more and more like the politicians of the McCarthy era.
Everybody and anybody must give true confessions to their demands.

Let those who run the ship take the blame and explain.

What next,the janitorial staff coming before the committee to tell what they might or might not have heard in the washrooms of Parliament?

It's all getting to be over the top with these committees and the power they seem to think they have.

[Wascally Wabbit]

Excuse me being dismissive of the two posters above - but for heavens sake - both the Federal and the various provincial governments implemented a principle called Openness of Government with various Freedom of Information Acts at least 30 years ago - including appointing independent Commissioners to oversee this "Openness".
However, since then, the public services - in collusion with elected officials - have been increasingly making a mockery of Access to Information.
Successive Commissioners have been reporting how much more clandestine government operations are becoming.
It's NOT partisan degradation and gotcha journalists - it IS politicians in power and their mandarins who are causing this problem.
And the problem is - when information about what government is up to is hidden - the government tends to do what it wants - for its own partisan benefit - and democracy slips into dictatorship!

[MyThought]

C'mon folks - everyone is accountable in the real world for their own jobs. Yes, the supervisor is responsible for his/her staff, the manager is responsible for his/her department and the execs are responsible for the whole company BUT each and every employee is also responsible for themselves.

The way the Cons want it - everyone can hide behind their bosses.

Besides, the taxpayers pay for the staff of Cabinet - and they should be responsible for the taxpayers.

Let's get back to the real world - not the one the Cons are trying to brainwash everyone into believing.

Harper is going to extreme measures - why?

[Aongasha]

Don't disagree with the above posters or thecommittee system at all. Just the way it has been run the last while. For instance; Pat Martin and his group were supposed to be looking at the Green Fund. Do you think that's been it's focus as of late? And while I hold no brief for Jaffer do you think the pockets - stuffed with cocaine as payment - was fair? This is a country where people don't say it out loud a lot but they believe in even-handedness. A number of these committees have not been that. Therein lies the problem - both with them playing to the media and the journalists encouraging them. Fairness gets lost in the process.