CP: Tories kill Information registry used to hold government accountable

[tuvor]

OTTAWA — The federal Conservatives have quietly killed a giant information registry that was used by lawyers, academics, journalists and ordinary citizens to hold government accountable.

The registry, created in 1989, is an electronic list of every request filed to all federal departments and agencies under the Access to Information Act.

Known as CAIRS, for Co-ordination of Access to Information Requests System, the database allowed ordinary citizens to identify millions of pages of once-secret documents that became public through individual freedom-of-information requests over many years.

But in a notice last week to civil servants on the Treasury Board website, officials posted an innocuous obituary: effective April 1, 2008, "the requirement to update CAIRS is no longer in effect."

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http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5i1P3MJdlhC5xoA8GjC99xAJitWrg

[HEyHEY]

1. It's time to oust this fucker

This is a blatant attack on accountability

[HeresyLives]

2. And how do we do that?

[HEyHEY]

3. non-confidence vote and an election?

[HeresyLives]

4. Polls show no one wants

an election. And people aren't donating money to any party but the Tories, so it makes it difficult for the Opposition to do so.

I don't like the data base situation, but it's not exactly an electrifying issue to go to the voters with either. None of them have been really. Irritating small things, but nothing that's gotten people worked up or outraged.

Edited to add: Polls show both major parties deadlocked, and they have been for 2 years, so unless some big issue comes along we are likely to get the same result we have now.

[HEyHEY]

5. That's completely off my point

I said it's time to oust the fucker - that's it.
Also, I'd say the cadman situation got people pretty pissed. The real problem here is Dion, he's a weak leader. The Liberals should be hammering the cons on their secretive ways and blatant attacks on the media. Run the election on that issue. As for polls, they mean dick. They sway quite a bit once a campaign actually starts.

[HeresyLives]

6. Well it's a point to you

but apparently not to anyone else or it would show up in the polls. And Dion has been kept busy by his Quebec wing, and having to oust deadwood.

I see you've bought into Tory propaganda about 'weak leader' though. If they can sway you, they can sway others.

In any case, had Dion gone to the voters a couple of months ago, we'd never have seen the RCMP raid, or learned about all this other stuff that's come out in the last little while. It may pay off for Dion to hold off and let the Tories take themselves out.

[HEyHEY]

7. HAHA Tory propaganda! - It's called OBSERVATION

If you think Dion is strong leader, you've bought into liberal propaganda

[HeresyLives]

8. No, it's Tory propaganda

Liberals have said nothing about Dion, one way or another. And the oountry knows little about him, so can't judge as yet.

Only an election campaign will change perceptions, and we already know the Tories have no choice but to go negative. Dion will have an uphill battle to change the image the Tories have given him, but he is by no means weak. He and his family were under guard in Quebec over death threats from separatists, but he continued fighting, and won in the end.