The Access to Information Act (ATIA) or its provincial equivalent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is necessary because experience has shown, worldwide, that governments will not respect the citizen’s ‘right to know’ without a legal requirement to do so. Why? Appointed and elected officials as well as public servants have strong incentives as well as personal interest to withhold information even when it would be in the public interest to disclose the information. In fact, in many such instances the personal (survival) interest of the individual is at odds with the public interest. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. For this reason most if not all of those who currently yield power at the various levels of government in our country would and do actually recoil from the accountability and transparency which the ATIA/FOIA brings.
Make all elected officials at the School Board, Municipal, Provincial and Federal levels not only subject to the Access to Information Act but obliged to make individual and personal quarterly pro-active disclosure of their expenses account
