To the Public Bills Committee regarding Bill No. 1 – An Act Respecting Government Organization and Administration.

To the Public Bills Committee regarding Bill No. 1 – An Act Respecting Government Organization and Administration.


The breadth and depth of the attack on democratic oversight of government contained in this bill is shocking. Fortunately, many of us have been sensitized by the authoritarian ambitions of the US president. Preserving democracy requires an active citizenry— people with a special interest in government transparency and accountability. 

While I am grateful that the government has dropped its attempt to undermine the power of the Auditor General, I would like to see a similar roll back of their attempt to reduce the power and independence of the Privacy and Information Commissioner. 

Robust access to information regarding the activities of government  through Freedom of Information requests is always going to feel inconvenient to the government in power. The PCs are not the only party to have campaigned on promises to strengthen FOIPOP access then forgotten those promises once in power. But Bill 1 goes further than merely failing to improve access to information, it attempts to give the heads of government departments decision making power over which requests will be dismissed as ‘trivial’ or ‘vexatious.’

As someone who has made use of FOIPOPs to get information about activities within the particularly opaque Department of Natural Resources, I can say with certainty that our Access to Information provisions should be strengthened not weakened. I expect DNR does find it vexatious that members of the public and journalists can find out about harvest plans that are being approved without having been put up for public comment, but that is exactly why decisions regarding FOIPOP requests must be made by an independent commissioner. 

I am also strongly opposed to the provision in this bill that would extend political control over the provincial civil service. We need civil servants who are doing their jobs on behalf of the public without fear that they can be fired without cause. Granting the governing party the power to fire non-unionized civil servants without cause is to erode fundamental rights for those workers, exposing them to arbitrary and capricious decision-making. This is not a way to improve efficiency, it is a way to create an anxious, compliant public service. 

Your government’s embrace of aggressive partisan rhetoric, as represented by repeated efforts to dismiss a part of the electorate as ‘special interests’, is on display too in the decision to disband Communications Nova Scotia. Though not always a fan of their efforts, the commitment to creating non-partisan public information is important. I have been surprised and pleased in the past by the quality of the information and the tone in public information documents such as those covering the Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy and Phases One and Two of High Production Forestry. I fear that disbanding Communications Nova Scotia indicates the abandonment of any commitment to non-partisan communications in favour of more controlled political messaging.

In sum, Bill 1 represents such fundamental overreach and is so lacking in redeeming qualities that I request it be withdrawn in its entirety.

Sincerely,
Nina Newington
Mount Hanley