If you filed an access request to the Canada Border Services Agency between Sept. 2021 and Nov. 2023 and it's still open, their access unit wants to hear from you.

Our latest #SecretCanada blog: Oops – CBSA has effectively lost 12,000 open access requests
secretcanada.com/news/cbsa-lost…

“It is not the job of Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario to protect the government from embarrassing itself. Its role is to interpret privacy laws in a manner that benefits the public, not corporations and government agencies.”

André Picard on the “sickness” of secrecy:
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…

Here's a head-scratcher:
1. Journalists FOI info on health care worker shortage, get denied.
2. They appeal.
3. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario agrees there's a “compelling public interest,” but says that's not enough.

If the public interest isn't enough, what is?
theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…

Feeling so proud and thankful to see all the hard work Robyn Doolittle and I put in (together with a supremely talented team) get recognized like this. SecretCanada.com, you’ve been quite the project. And we’re not done with you yet! #cdnfoi

Let me give you the TLDR version of how the convo went with editors when Tom Cardoso and I pitched Secret Canada: 'Okay so, we want to go all in — LIKE ALL IN — on a massive policy issue: access to information. And we'll need a year and a half to do it. Oh! And a full team...

For 18 years, the federal government had a centralized, internal FOI database of request summaries. It was quietly killed in 2008, and its contents deleted because the data was considered 'transitory.'
Remembering CAIRS: secretcanada.com/news/cairs-foi… #cdnfoi #cdnpoli #SecretCanada

Bit late to this, but beyond honoured that Secret Canada was recognized by IRE and NICAR with the FOI Award and IRE Medal!
The judges called it 'one of the most ambitious public records projects ever published.' 🥹
ire.org/announcing-the… #cdnfoi #SecretCanada

New #SecretCanada post: Save yourself a piggyback! The Investigative Journalism Foundation has launched an incredible new database — Open By Default — that contains more than a decade of previously released federal ATIP records. secretcanada.com/news/ijf-foi-d…

I'm so excited our Open By Default database is now live!

It includes 20,000 ATIPs and 2.6 million pages filled with all kinds of fascinating government secrets!

All the documents are free, searchable and downloadable. Check it out! #cdnfoi #cdnatip

theijf.org/open-by-default

Our latest #SecretCanada blog post digs into federal piggyback requests, which have surged by 59 per cent (!!!) year-over-year.
secretcanada.com/news/federal-a…
#cdnpoli #cdnfoi

Further to that Supreme Court mandate letter decision, last week I sat down with Justin Safayeni 🇺🇦, the CBC's lawyer, to chat about the ruling. We talk about all sorts of fun stuff: Constitutional conventions! Standards of review! #cdnfoi #cdnpoli #SecretCanada secretcanada.com/news/supreme-c…

New post up on SecretCanada.com, where I look at the latest federal access to information statistics, make some spreadsheets and get angry about them. #cdnfoi #cdnati #cdnpoli #SecretCanada
secretcanada.com/news/federal-a…

New Secret Canada blog post is up! Vexatious, or tenacious? What to know about “vexatious” FOI requester provisions secretcanada.com/news/foi-laws-… #cdnfoi

Big FOI Supreme Court decision dropping Friday 👀

Spoken word: Behind the scenes with @cvandusennews and Mike Ross, the news-readers for @amiaudio bringing the The Globe and Mail's headlines to people who are blind or partially sighted theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…