Guest post by Libby Coyner, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class 

After a riveting evening of Michael Geist, BC Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis started off the Friday morning session with an overview of the past and present access to information in British Columbia.  Despite the overall the gloom-and-doom feelings about access to information in North America that many of us have felt over the past few years, Loukidelis argued that access is increasing by leaps and bounds on a global scale.  (For those of you who attended the FOI talk given by Suffolk University Law professor Alasdair Roberts at SFU Harbour Centre, you will have heard similar sentiments).  He pointed out that many 3rd world countries have adopted legislation regarding freedom and access to information and that such legislation is going a long way toward improving health and aid issues.  In North America, he pointed out that the idea of accountability has become more important since World War II.

While he painted a fairly nice overall picture of access to information, he did recognize the shortcomings and challenges that BC faces in its own access to information battle.  Of course, working with the technology will be one of the major obstacles in providing access while still protecting privacy.  He cited the case of the Ministry of Forests, which constructed a database that effectively limited access to information by lacking the function of being able to separate the confidential information from the non-confidential. 

In addition to technology issues, there will always be the difficulties related to people and their resistance to record management practices.  Loukidelis mentioned that the Privacy office plans to implement report cards that will grade different offices on the amount of time it takes to respond to FOI requests.  (He added that the Privacy office will also be subject to grading.) 

Loukidelis remarked that records management laws in British Columbia are in need of a face lift, but he didn’t really expand on what he hoped to see in terms of a new RM law.  What I didn’t get out of this presentation were answers to questions I’ve had for awhile: why have no records been transferred to the BC Archives since 2003? How can the province really expect to have good access to information if there is no legislation governing when and if the records of ministries ever make it to the archives for selection and/or permanent retention?  I think that these might have been relevant questions to cover, particularly as he was talking to a room full of information professionals. I hope that next time I see David Loukidelis, he has more than a 20 minute time slot!