Darts and laurels from Newspapers Canada’s 2015 Freedom of Information Audit

OTTAWA – Some darts and laurels from Newspapers Canada’s 2015 Freedom of Information Audit:

Darts

— Environment Canada for taking two months to provide a list of Twitter user names.

— Canada Post for refusing all access to records created in the last two years dealing with impact of conversion from home-delivery to community mailboxes on elderly Canadians and Canadians with disabilities.

— Governments at all levels for refusing to provide electronic records in machine-readable formats, making data difficult to use.

— Police forces across Canada for, as a group, their reluctance to release information in the audit. Winnipeg police in particular for suggesting it would take years to respond to a request for police calls data and Toronto police, for extending the time to respond to the same request by nine months.

— Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan for continuing to exclude municipal police forces from their access regimes, and P.E.I. for being the only province to shield municipal governments.

Laurels

— Newfoundland and Labrador for removing all application fees, and drastically paring back other fees, as part of an overhaul.

— Halifax and Moncton, N.B., for earning a grade of A for both speed of response and completeness of disclosure.

— Quebec City police for being the only police force in the country to fully release an electronic file of officers, ranks and salary ranges.

— Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. for releasing all requests for data in full, in machine-readable formats.

(Source: Newspapers Canada National Freedom of Information Audit 2015)