Carleton communications Prof. Mary Francoli has released a major new report evaluating Canada’s progress on its Open Government Partnership (OGP) commitments. The Canadian government signed on to the international partnership in 2011. While the government has carried out a self-assessment of its activities during the first year of its membership in the OGP, Francoli’s report is one of the first major independent evaluations, as part of the partnership’s Independent Reporting Mechanism, of whether the country is sticking to its plan.
The goal of the partnership is to secure commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. Canada is among more than 60 countries on board with the partnership, and the Treasury Board Secretariat is the main actor behind Canada’s involvement. As part of its membership in the OGP, Canada was required to assemble an action plan. Francoli’s report is an assessment of the government’s commitment to its plan.
In assembling the report, Francoli compiled data and spoke with Canadians engaged with the issue to get an idea of how they viewed Canada’s progress. Interviewees were asked about whether the government’s commitments were ambitious enough to foster a culture of openness and transparency in Canada.
The report concludes that Canada made significant progress on the implementation of the majority of its year-one commitments. It highlights the government’s successes, such as the adoption of an Open Government Licence that removes restrictions on public use of government information. Francoli says the licence has strong potential to impact government practice for the better in the coming years.
But the report is also critical of the government for its lack of ambition in driving an open agenda.
“Civil society didn’t really see Canada’s commitments as being overly ambitious,” says Francoli. “They tended to see them more as technological solutions.”
Francoli points to the process of requesting information from the government through Access to Information legislation. As part of the OGP, Canada committed to making this process available online, improving on a system which still required paper requests, traditional mail and cheques for payment.
But many people were quick to point out that online mechanisms for information requests have been available in many other countries for some time now. While a technological change to improve the old system is welcome, they said, it does little to improve openness in Canada.
“If we think about the larger goal of openness, technological changes like these don’t improve the Canadian landscape in terms of transparency,” says Francoli. “They simply streamline the administration of already existing processes. These changes don’t deal with issues facing the access regime, such as timeliness in having access requests fulfilled, fees and the fact that institutions like the House of Commons and Senate aren’t covered by the act. Canada needs to be more ambitious in terms of the open government commitments that are made.”
Francoli also has some concerns about aspects of Canada’s action plan that are lagging behind. While a draft of a new Directive on Open Government (a policy statement on open governance that will help direct the federal government) has been prepared, it has not yet been made public. The directive is particularly important because of its potential for driving proactive disclosure of public records as the federal government’s standard.
Citizen consultations behind Canada’s membership in the OGP have been lacking at times, the report concludes.
“The consultation on the development of the Canadian action plan has been perceived almost across the board as problematic,” says Francoli. “The government admitted in its own assessment report that it didn’t do a very good job with it.”
The report also concluded that the development of a Canadian web portal, a one-stop-shop that consolidated a number of existing Government of Canada websites in December 2013, is problematic.
“Many in civil society worried about what the development of this portal meant for the preservation of information. Some perceived it as being a way to remove important information.”
Two high-profile developments, the cancellation of the long-form census and closure of federal libraries, also raised concern.
“Cuts to programs and evidenced-based research don’t bode well for openness and transparency in this country,” says Francoli.
The report is also critical of a lack of leadership in creating a culture of openness in Canadian government.
“One of the main recommendations coming out of this report is that there needs to be a higher level of political support for this initiative,” she says. “If we look at some other countries, we see major political leaders pushing the open government agenda. For example, in the U.S., Barack Obama has pushed hard for an open government.”
Francoli admits that there are many Canadian public servants who are working towards openness and transparency, and that Treasury Board President Tony Clement has taken an active lead in this initiative.
“But it’s something that requires more genuine and ongoing support from the prime minister, or from the Clerk of the Privy Council,” she says. “Change in a bureaucracy can be pretty incremental, and if you want to have a large-scale cultural shift toward openness, you need high-level support to drive it along. It needs more than one minister.”
“While this isn’t a comparative report assessing Canada’s performance against that of other countries, if we were to look at it comparatively, we’re a little behind countries like the U.S. and the United Kingdom,” says Francoli. “This is really a starting point for Canada. It’s the first action plan, and this report encompasses some of the first feedback on that plan, so there is certainly room for improvement.”
The reports makes a number of recommendations for Canada’s continued participation in the OGP:
– Improve citizen engagement
– Improve information flow
– Ensure usability of information and data
– Expand integrity commitments
– Whole of government support is required
The Treasury Board will be developing a second version of the action plan. Ultimately, Francoli hopes that her report gives a voice for civil society to help guide the government towards increased openness and transparency.
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