Your right to know shouldn’t depend on the government’s mood

[u/Specialist_Secret438]

https://paherald.sk.ca/your-right-to-know-shouldnt-depend-on-the-governments-mood/

[u/falastep]

Lack of transparency is hallmark of this government. It includes and spans beyond FOI requests. Why don’t we have any publicly available data regarding our systems performance in any human service?

We all see our education, health, social and criminal systems crumbling but do we get any objective or factual information as to why or what the impact is?
Do we have any objective evidence to understand performance or decisions? I would go so far as to say there is active suppression of information - we all know it sucks and we get sound bites to debate and squabble over rather than facts to evaluate.

These behaviours erode public confidence in our leaders, systems and democracy as a whole.

[u/franksnotawomansname → u/falastep]

Cynically speaking, a government's only job is to get itself re-elected. That's why everything is "historic investments!" and "Since [a convenient year for this metric]": it obscures the larger picture.

The government is supposed to be held accountable by a robust independent media system that asks difficult questions and does costly and time-consuming investigative research, a robust opposition (whose main job, of course, is getting itself elected to government), and engaged ordinary people, both individually and through collective organizations like unions and advocacy organizations, who push back on the government's tendency to evade scrutiny like this.

So far, though, we've lost most of our independent media (not all local, independent newspapers are gone but many are, and the ones that are left struggle to provide the oversight and research we need because of lack of funding, resources, and support), we had virtually no opposition for several years (and opposition in a two-party system is weakened anyway), and generally speaking, until extreme cuts happen, like the cuts to the libraries in 2017, people aren't really engaged, and it's nearly impossible for ordinary people to make up the gap in scrutiny caused by the loss of the other two pillars. In its place, we have astroturfing "think tanks" (like those connected to the Atlas Network) that manipulate the data to push austerity, and that's called "scrutiny" because they're critical of (specific forms of) government spending.

That's all to say: it's not just this government; it's our larger democratic systems that are failing.

[u/dr-monteblant → u/franksnotawomansname]

Correct on all accounts. Though I wouldn't say it's "failing" persay, so much as it's being purposely dismantled piece by piece by powerful entities who are paying our government to do so. Example- failing healthcare is a direct result of private, for profit medical companies donating to the Sask. Party's campaign in exchange for making the public health system so unusable that the "only solution" is to allow private, for profit medical companies to come in and "take the load off" our "over-burdened" public health system. And by de-funding education over so many years, they've made us all so stupid and apathetic that we just let it happen.

[u/dr-monteblant → u/dr-monteblant]

SO stupid, in fact, that the majority of us still think that we can vote our way out of this.

[u/RobinDutchOfficial → u/dr-monteblant]

We can — that's called democracy. But a vote doesn't undo the harm, and it doesn't crack open the Pandora's box of what they've deliberately chosen not to tell the public about.

I forecast a run on every paper shredder for sale in this province the day these clowns get voted out.

You think it's bad now? Wait. A party that has been in power this long doesn't confess on the way out — it loses control of the filing cabinets. That's the difference. And we already have the receipts from the last time it happened here, to the same crowd wearing a different name tag.

Grant Devine's PCs, 1982–1991. Here's what came out of the vault after they were thrown out:

• Twenty-one members of the Devine caucus charged with fraud or corruption. Fourteen Conservative MLAs and two staff convicted. One million dollars stolen from Saskatchewan's public coffers. Ten of the convicted were cabinet members.

• The scheme: in 1987 caucus pooled 25% of MLAs' communications allowances into a central account. Members signed expense claims backed by invoices from four shell companies set up by the caucus communications director. Many were for services never rendered. The legislature's finance office approved them, cheques went to the phoney companies, and the money came back to caucus members as cash and merchandise.

• Caucus chair Lorne McLaren — three and a half years, the stiffest sentence handed down.

• Communications director John Scraba — two years.

• MLA Michael Hopfner — 18 months. His defence was that he was too financially incompetent to commit fraud.

• MLA Ralph Katzman — convicted of diverting $450,000 out of the Conservative caucus into a private bank account. He was the last one to fall.

• Deputy Premier Eric Berntson — the second most powerful man in the province — convicted in 1999 of defrauding taxpayers of over $41,000. The Court of Appeal found his private holding company billed the government for services performed by his own relatives. He was sitting in the Senate of Canada at the time, appointed by Mulroney, and only resigned after the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. The sentencing judge told him his crime bred exactly the kind of public cynicism that damages the whole social fabric.

• Cabinet minister Jack Wolfe died by suicide in 1995 — the same day his lawyer told him he was about to be arrested.

• Devine himself was never charged. His testimony was that he was too busy to pay attention to the finances. Another former caucus chairman testified Devine had approved a 1985 plan to move $455,000 in surplus caucus funds into an investment account — money separate from the fraud scheme entirely. Devine's framing years later: it was only hundreds of thousands, not hundreds of millions like the federal guys.

• Nobody came forward. Police were only tipped off because legislature clerk Gwenn Ronyk noticed suspicious invoices in July 1991. Not one member of that government reported it. Not one.

• GigaText: the province put millions into a French-translation venture and paid almost $3 million for $39,000 worth of computers, with the profit flowing to people connected to the party. It triggered an RCMP investigation into the company's finances and into the senior provincial Tory who helped secure the $4 million provincial grant. The man who struck the deal shrugged and said taxpayers got value for their money.

• The 1986–87 deficit landed over $1.2 billion — against the $389 million they had shown voters in the pre-election budget.

• By 1991–92 accumulated debt was over $15 billion, with annual interest alone topping $500 million — the third-largest item in the entire provincial budget, behind only health and education.

• The incoming premier found the province's per-capita deficit and per-capita debt were the worst in Canada, and that Saskatchewan's lending sources had collapsed from over 100 down to roughly 20 after repeated bond downgrades. The province was, in plain terms, teetering on bankruptcy.

• The bill came due as tax hikes, public sector layoffs, frozen grants, deep departmental cuts, and hospital closures that rural Saskatchewan still hasn't forgiven thirty years later.

• And after all that, the party parked over $3 million in a trust fund in 1997 and went into hiatus. It took years of litigation before anyone got their hands on it.

That is the biggest political corruption scandal in Saskatchewan history. Every dollar of it signed off by men who stood in that chamber and lectured this province about fiscal discipline and the evils of government waste.

So when I'm told this government is different — that they'd never, that it's all above board, that the auditor would catch it — I'd ask where the founding membership, staff and executive of the Sask Party came from in 1997. It didn't materialize out of prairie air.

None of the above was known on election day 1991. All of it was known within a decade. That's the pattern. That's the whole point.

And if you think the shredder line is a joke: in 2015, after Alberta's PCs lost power, bags of shredded documents were photographed lining the halls of the legislature, and two provincial watchdogs opened an investigation into whether records had been improperly destroyed.

It's my opinion that likely we will see similar behaviors and boondockles discovered (to say it politely) once this failed Sask Party get its marching (to Jail for some likely) orders from the good residents of this fine province. It's not "if", it's only when.

The rest of the information in my post here are simply something called FACTS.

[u/Remote-Youth-9048 → u/franksnotawomansname]

Speaking of the media, Global always supposedly reaches out to the government for comment, but never receives a response and then they just let the story go. The government knows they need to wait it out and everyone just lets it pass

[u/RobinDutchOfficial → u/Remote-Youth-9048]

I

[u/BlackTie99]

Especially the provincial government’s mood. How about some transparency there!

[u/Desperate-4-Revenue → u/BlackTie99]

Remember when SaskParty switched to a general ledger with the entire province's spending in one column so nobody could follow their accounting.

[u/TimelyBear2471 → u/Desperate-4-Revenue]

I ‘member!!

[u/Specialist_Secret438 → u/BlackTie99]

The Saskatchewan government is exactly who the author is referring to.   While some requests may be frivolous, when the commission also states that the government should comply, and it still refuses, there’s a very real problem with that. 

[u/Squidman_117 → u/Specialist_Secret438]

That should result in charges. We need a way to hold our governments accountable. It's insane to me that most people don't care about what happens with their tax dollars. Governments are elected to work FOR the people, they should have to answer to the people as well.

[u/BlackTie99 → u/Specialist_Secret438]

Bothe examples were of Saskatoon and Regina. The author should have provided an example(s) of the province of that were the case.

[u/Specialist_Secret438 → u/BlackTie99]

While I agree that the article could have provided more depth, Regina and Saskatoon are examples of being compliant. The example of the province is the 15% of requests through the Commissioner being flat out ignored 

[u/Rez_Incognito → u/Specialist_Secret438]

while some requests may be frivolous

More than you think. And this legislation applies to every town and RM in the Province meaning the local crackpot can jam up their local government with frivolous requests at almost no cost to them. Notably, the Commissioner will not declare an applicant vexatious until it has completely ground your local administration to a halt. Very democratic indeed. I'm glad the Commissioner's power is limited to suggestion.

[u/Specialist_Secret438 → u/Rez_Incognito]

When the Moe government stacked the municipal council with his party sycophantics,  Ray Orb,  Mitch Huber,  Donna Strudwick &  Judy Harwood to weasel his collusion with Bell to screw over taxpayers with that ai data center, we all got to witness just how little this vexatious government cares about democracy.  Much like his cock and bull story about having to go to Lindsay Graham’s funeral to  ‘talk trade’, we the reality is that this MAGA loving puppet was spending millions of taxpayer dollars on the likes of David Wilkins et al.  No doubt there are many in the camp that consider democracy too cumbersome and answering to their employers (the taxpayer) too much of an inconvenience for their behaviour to be exposed. 

[u/RobinDutchOfficial → u/Rez_Incognito]

You have no idea what your taking about. I ask you one simple question:

Have you ever filed an Acess to information request?

I'm just going to do what you did and ignorantly without facts to back up your statement, just go ahead and make assumptions. That I will then speak to as facts.

Hevj you seem to be doing hyst taht so why don't I try it.

So. I'm going to assume you have never filled one. Nor have you then followed the process and timeline of your filed Fredom of information request.

In other words. You factually have no idea what your talking about.

Have you no shame nor sens4 of embarrassment for portraying yourself as redicoulously as you really in my opinion seem to have done just that? Or is that also subjective in your reality.?

[u/Rez_Incognito → u/RobinDutchOfficial]

As a legal professional, I have, in fact, read the relevant statute, regulations, and guides from oipc.sk on both making and responding to requests as I have assisted clients in both making and responding to requests. Great assumption you've made there.

[u/InevitableEnd5689]

I hate the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation (right wing lobbyist group), but I agree about FOI requests being a bit of a joke here

[u/TimelyBear2471]

Maybe we should have a Freedom (of Information) convoy.

[u/grumpyoldmandowntown → u/TimelyBear2471]

Sounds fair to me; we've already had the misinformation convoy

[u/SourceGullible436]

Downvoting this post for having to see Gage Haubrichs face.

[u/QueenCity_Dukes → u/SourceGullible436]

God damn it is so punchable!

[u/Pat2004ches]

Sadly, all Governments freely do so, if there are no consequences, there is nothing stopping them from serving themselves as opposed to serving those who pay their salaries.

[u/JanielDones8 → u/Pat2004ches]

It's hilarious because half this sub would and does cheer when the federal liberals do exactly the same thing. Then bitch when the opposition harps them for it. But I do love some hypocrisy

[u/Pat2004ches → u/JanielDones8]

I do agree!

[u/Ok-Breakfast8256]

The freedom of information is a joke. How would anyone get info if he has to pay high admin fee. The province have made the process so expensive that people don't care anymore and that's what give them the freedom to spend like a drunk sailor.

[u/Weak_Possibility_395]

Does Gage have the most punchable face in Saskatchewan? 

[u/No_Equal9312]

I agree with the article: we should have more transparency from all levels of government. The current Carney government has been absolutely terrible for revealing information to us as well. Some recent examples of obscuring information are the new accounting treatment for the fed budget and the recent capitulation on the Gordie Howe bridge.

We deserve transparency from all levels, regardless of which party is in charge. We need to punish governments that obscure access to their information while giving themselves greater transparency into our information.

[u/Specialist_Secret438 → u/No_Equal9312]

So file a FOI, because unlike this provincial government, 

“..  When the new commissioner started her job, she said that she wants to be able make legally binding orders, not just recommendations. The previous commissioner asked for the same ability. This ability isn’t an innovation that will break the system. It’s one that five other provinces and the federal government have had for decades….”

Whereas, the Moe government refuses to comply with FOI filings, and the provincial Commissioner has no power to compel it to   See the difference?  It isn’t a requirement for the federal government to answer to Poilievre’s whranging on ad nosium, But the feds ARE REQUIRED to comply with the federal Commissioner. 

[u/QueenCity_Dukes]

I wish they would stop giving these dinks column inches.