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FOI News




The Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia


Advocating, Educating, and Mobilizing the Citizens of Nova Scotia to Exercise Their Rights to Information

The Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia (RTKNS) is a non-profit organization. Through advocacy and education, RTKNS encourages the use and development of freedom-of-information legislation to foster a better informed and more politically active electorate in Nova Scotia and to improve the quality of public and private decision making in the province.

Your FOI Experience:

    Have you ever filed a FOI request? What has been your experience? Has the information you sought been forthcoming, or did you find the bureaucracy working against you? How do you think the Act can further be strengthened, so that it serves its purpose better? Let Us Know!


SPECIAL INTEREST:

  • Know How They Vote (NS Legislature)

  • Music to Accompany Right to Know Week

  • All articles on the lowering of the Nova Scotia Freedom of Information fee (August, 2009)

  • Province lowers Freedom of Information fee - DoJ Press Release (August 14, 2009)



  • Right to Know Coalition NS AGM Minutes

  • NS Election June 2009 - Party Views on Accountabilty and Transparency


  • Darce Fardy on the Carter Center: America's Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information (April 28-30, 2009)





  • "...those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

    - US President Barack Obama: From his inauguration speech Jan 20 2009
    ( video available from Whitehouse.gov edited by RTKNS)

  • Nova Scotia Supreme Court Says Development Authorities Are Public Bodies Subject to FOI: Click here for the news history

  • Mail from D250: A Response to Darce from Democracy 250

  • NS Election Oct 14 2008 - Candidate Views on Accountabilty and Transparency

    From NSRTK misc

  • Dr. Shiv Chopra - Canada's foremost Whistleblower at a Right to Know Coalition of NS event Mar. 26th




    In the News:


    RTK-QOTD

      • "Resignation leads to apathy. Apathy leads to inertia. Inertia leads to indifference. Indifference paralyzes the instinct for self-defense, that is, the instinct to fight back."

        -- Oriana Fallaci (1929 - 2006) Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II.

      • “The thing that will do us in is secret government... democracies die in secret governments.”

        -- Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author Bob Woodward

      • "Secrecy is like a pair of hands around the throat of democracy, cutting off the flow of oxygen to the brain.”

        -- Journalism professor Ted Gup (Case Western Reserve University) in his new book, 'Nation of Secrets'

      • "...people have been disengaged, the Bush administration has expanded the powers of the presidency and muted the effectiveness of the legislative branch. Secrecy in government also has risen to unprecedented heights.

        Transparency must exist at some level for people to follow and agree and to understand the policies of the nation.

        The secrecy is far worse than what happened during the Nixon administration.”

        -- John W. Dean (former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon)

      • "When government secrecy shrouds such obviously public data, it's hard to resist suspecting the worst -- that the information was held back for political reasons."

        -- from 'PC secrecy all-pervasive' in the Sept 25th Edmonton Journal

      • "The biggest threat at this moment is secrecy. At Dal[housie], we don't know which professors are working in the private sector or what companies they are working for. Universities have to be open and accountable, but corporations are demanding secrecy."

        -- Writer and activist Chris Arsenault on the impact private money has on higher education
        from the Coast article 'Corporate U' by Angela Day

      • Media Pressure Opens Door on Federal Talks on Internet Privacy Legislation:
        "It took some criticism in the press, but the federal Conservatives have thankfully agreed to open up what were closed consultations on Internet privacy legislation and have articulated their commitment to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians." Full Story

        -- The Windsor Star (September 19 2007)

      • "A watchdog doesn't have to bite to do its job of guarding the public's interest. All it has to do is bark."

        -- Waterloo Chronicle (August 2007)

      • "Let's put it on the table, let's see it debated in Parliament. Let's see it debated in the journals across this country. Let's have public forums on it. What are they hiding?"

        -- protest organizer Barry Weisleder, a member of the Toronto Committee to Stop The SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership) summit

      • "When I talk of the secretive nature of the talks, I deplore the fact that only business people are present for the meetings when they should have included civil society too."

        -- Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe on the secretive nature of the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit opening Aug 20th in Montebello, Que

      • "Secrecy is vital for intelligence work, but not at any cost. And especially not when that secrecy looks like it has been disingenuously wielded to avoid public repercussions for incompetent, wrong-headed or careless behaviour."

        -- from the Chronicle Herald Editorial Called 'The limits of secrecy' (Aug 2007)


      • "A parent needs to encourage democratic involvement..."

        -- Ronald Clavier (a Toronto psychologist and author of Teen Brain, Teen Mind)






    		• Friends of the Coalition

  • The Hon. John M. Reid, QC
    former Information Commissioner of Canada


  • Dean Beeby
    Ottawa Deputy Bureau Chief at Canadian Press


  • Lee Cohen
    Canadian lawyer specializing in immigration and human rights matters


  • Alasdair Roberts
    - Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy, Boston's Suffolk University Law School
    - author of Blacked Out : Government Secrecy in the Information Age


  • Dr. David Flaherty
    Privacy and Information Policy Consultant
    - former BC Information and Privacy Commissioner


  • Bob Culbert
    Independent Producer


  • Wayne MacKay
    - Professor of Law at Dalhousie University
    - Vice Chairman of the Centre for Human Rights in Montreal
    - former Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission
    - former President of Mount Allison University
    - Member of the Order of Canada


  • Stephen Kimber
    - Rogers Communications Chair in Journalism at the University of King's College - award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster


  • Brian Flemming
    - International lawyer, teacher, lecturer and newspaper columnist (Halifax Daily News)
    - former policy advisor to Prime Minster Trudeau
    - former member of the Board of Directors of the CBC
    - Member of the Order of Canada


  • Tom Mitchinson
    former Assistant Access and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario


  • Andrew Culbert
    Producer of the Series: The Fifth Estate
    CBC Television


  • Linden MacIntyre
    Host of Series: The Fifth Estate; Author of The Bishop's Man
    CBC Television


  • Barry Tuckett
    former Ombudsman and Information and Privacy Commissioner of Manitoba


    • Copyright © 2006 Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia

    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.



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