{"id":7150,"date":"2014-06-25T17:33:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T21:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7150"},"modified":"2014-06-25T17:33:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T21:33:08","slug":"time-to-shine-light-on-government-says-trudeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-to-shine-light-on-government-says-trudeau\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to \u201cshine light\u201d on Government, says Trudeau"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is said that sunshine is the best disinfectant but, unfortunately, not a lot of light shines on our federal government these days.
\nAccess to information requests are taking longer and arrive blacked out. Data is released in grainy photocopies, not electronically. Withholding information has become the default position. Information paid for by taxpayers is hidden from them.
\nUnder my leadership, the Liberal Party has begun to reverse this trend and raise the bar on openness and transparency. A year ago we began publishing our own caucus\u2019 spending every quarter, which led to all-party agreement on the proactive disclosure of parliamentary expenses.
\nThe next step is the introduction of the Transparency Act, which will improve openness not only in Parliament, but in our government.
\nRight now, Canada\u2019s Access to Information Act is stuck in the 1980s. The Transparency Act will pull it into the modern era.
\nThis Act will entrench in law that all government information must be \u201copen by default\u201d and available in modern formats. It eliminates all fees for Access to Information beyond the initial $5 request fee. It will initiate a review and modernization of the entire Access to Information system. It strengthens the mandate of the Information Commissioner by giving them the power to enforce information laws. And it ends the secret nature of the House of Commons\u2019 Board of Internal Economy.
\nThese are first, tangible steps\u2014within the limit of what can be proposed in a Private Member\u2019s Bill\u2014that can be put into law this session. None are partisan. And all will be debated and voted on by all MPs in the fall.
\nThe Transparency Act builds on the positive steps we have taken and will be strengthened as I consult with Canadians and other Parliamentarians when travelling across the country this summer. I am convinced that by working together we can achieve all-party consensus to pass this bill and bring a bit of sunshine back to our government.
\n
\nJustin Trudeau
\nLeader, Liberal Party of Canada
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is said that sunshine is the best disinfectant but, unfortunately, not a lot of light shines on our federal government these days. Access to information requests are taking longer and arrive blacked out. Data is released in grainy photocopies, not electronically. Withholding information has become the default position. Information paid for by taxpayers is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1Rk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 06:52:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}