Sometimes you get the shark...

... and sometimes the shark gets you.  And so the story goes.

In the world of Access to Information (ATI) sometimes the most revealing information is the information you do not get.

I am thinking specifically of a recent ATI request I made to a government department.  The material requested is not the secrets to the vault or who knew what and when, but rather I asked for the contents of a nineteen year old contract.  What was the response?  It is a secret... we can't tell you.  When an ancient contract is classified as secret it make you wonder why.  Why hide a public document?  Is there something in it that is illegal or embarrassing?  Why can't you release the document with sensitive parts redacted?  What are you trying to hide?

There are times that information requests are legitimately refused.  For example if the information does not exist or is not yet complete enough to be made public, that can be a legitimate reason to refuse a request.

This explanation applies to a local Anti-Wind group who is demanding, through their lawyer, access to a position paper not yet released by Pro-Wind, the company who has the audacity to want to build wind turbines in rural Ottawa.  The paper that is being demanded "RIGHT NOW" is scheduled to be released 60 days before public hearings (as required by law) - but that is not good enough for the protesters.  In a request to the wind company, the protesters demanded a whole raft of information besides the mentioned paper.  They were indignant when the company told their lawyer that the information they were requesting was on the company's web site - in full and free view of all who want to look at it.  The only item refused was the unpublished paper that is due to be published in a few months.

Now I understand the frustration of the protesters.  They believe that they have legitimate claims that with wind turbine will render them deaf, sterile or dead.  I do not want to argue their evidence here.  They might be right... they might be wrong.

But to demonize the company because the company does not accede to their every whim is not the way to go about it.