Life on hilarity Hill Memo from PMO gagsters has bureaucrats rolling in the aisles

By GREG WESTON

Ottawa Sun, 10 February, 2010

OTTAWA – A warning letter to all federal cabinet ministers from the Prime Minister’s Office has produced a welcome moment of levity at a time when the national capital clown chamber is closed for prorogies.

The dire memo, that has left politicians and bureaucrats rolling in the aisles, reminds all ministerial staff to respect the country’s access to information laws.

Specifically, the missive from the PM’s chief of staff, Guy Giorno, warns that processing requests for government documents and other information is not the play-toy of politicians or their staffers.

Coming from the office of a secrecy-obsessed prime minister heading a government that has gagged its own ministers, censors anything that looks good in black, and has so far caused two federal information commissioners to leave their jobs in disgust — well, you can see why the Hill is alive with the sound of hilarity.

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When the Conservatives first came to office in 2006, then information commissioner John Reid sounded the alarm bells at what he called retrograde steps towards secrecy — and was promptly run out of town.

His successor, Robert Marleau, recommended 12 fundamental changes needed to strengthen the access-to-information laws, and quit after his advice was ignored.

Finally last fall, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson clarified the Conservatives’ commitment to openness and accountability.

The government, he said, really isn’t the least bit interested in reforming federal information laws.

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