No wonder right to know activists get depressed.

In its May 1, 2007 edition the Globe and Mail carried two federal secrecy issues back to back.

In one an RCMP Officer complains that he saw requests to the RCMP for information involving the force's controversial pension plan delayed and obstructed. And this from the man who recently retired as a senior officer in RCMP Access to Information.

The Officer told a House of Commons Committee that the RCMP leadership took nine months to deliver records that could have been made availabe in 60 days. "And the version that was finally shipped out was so heavily editted that few actual words were visible between the vast swaths of blank ink".

The story on the next page is headlined: "Judge, Arar join to uncloak torture report secrecy." According to the writer of the story the public is still not allowed to see the blacked out portion, not even after a $15-million public inquiry that lasted more than three years".

Obstruction like this happens because not enough Canadians seem to care. And citizen pressure is the only thing that will get governments' attention.