TORONTO, May 8, 2024
/CNW/ - Canada's Department of
National Defence has been selected as the 2023 recipient of the
federal Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in
Government Secrecy for taking three years to respond to an access
request by an Ottawa researcher
who inquired about the cost of a controversial program to build new
Canadian warships.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves
Giroux has estimated the cost to taxpayers of the
ship-building contract, which would see 15 new warships built for
the Royal Canadian Navy as part of the Canadian Surface Combatant
program, will be about $84 billion.
According to data cited in a January
2024 story published by The Ottawa Citizen, the project is
currently behind schedule and experiencing huge cost overruns.
"Even though this project is still stuck in the dry dock of the
Irving Shipyards, it feels like a project that's already sunk in
terms of accountability and transparency," said Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian
Association of Journalists (CAJ).
"Misleading journalists and returning 1,700 pages of censored
documents to a researcher asking a simple question is both
Kafkaesque and indefensible. It shows a galling level of disrespect
for the intelligence of Canadians and their right to know how their
tax dollars are being spent."
As the Citizen's story notes, officials with Public Services and
Procurement Canada issued a directive that firms interested in
maintenance work on the Canadian Surface Combatant Program could
not talk to journalists and instead must refer all inquiries to the
department. This directive was altered after the Citizen began
reporting on the so-called 'gag order.'
In addition to the troubling lack of basic disclosure associated
with the Canadian Surface Combatant program, the Code of Silence
Award jury also noted another intriguing submission, citing the
Department of National Defence's penchant for secrecy.
This submission focused on how it took the department three
years to complete a request for information under the Access to
Information Act about a 'hoax memo' that raised public fear about
wolves being released into the woods near Annapolis Valley, N.S., in 2020.
A CBC News story about the release of 1,500 pages of documents
reads: "Leaked 'wolf letter' leaves military sheepish, internal
emails show."
This year's jury also wishes to bestow a dishonourable mention
to the federal Cabinet Office for their efforts, in partnership
with the Australian government, to secretly undermine the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in
2003.
According to a report from Britain's The Guardian, cabinet records showed
that the Australian government sought to water down the
declaration's language from "self-determination" to
"self-management." Amendments, similarly, were being pursued
without Indigenous consultation.
"It is an international embarrassment that Canadians must turn
to the documents kept by other countries to understand how
decisions were made by our national government on critical files
such as those involving Indigenous Peoples," Jolly said.
"When Canada abandoned the
proactive disclosure of cabinet records during the 1980s it, in one
fell swoop, took us back to the stone age in terms of transparency.
It was an ill-conceived decision then and one that continues to
undermine our collective right to know every single day."
The Code of Silence Awards are presented annually by the CAJ,
the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University (CFE), and the
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). The awards call
public attention to government or publicly-funded agencies that
work hard to hide information to which the public has a right to
under access to information legislation.
Last year, the Canada Border Services Agency was recognized as
the federal winner for its failure to disclose basic information
about how the controversy-laden ArriveCan app's cost to taxpayers
ballooned beyond figures disclosed in original public cost
estimates.
The remaining 2023 Code of Silence Awards will be handed out
bi-weekly. This year's winner in the provincial category will be
announced on May 22.
The CAJ is Canada's largest
national professional organization for journalists from all media,
representing members across the country. The CAJ's primary roles
are to provide high-quality professional development for its
members and public-interest advocacy.
SOURCE Canadian Association of Journalists