Governments, do not frustrate your citizens - TheChronicleHerald.ca

Governments, do not frustrate your citizens

 
 

By DARCE FARDY

Tue. Sep 9 - 6:03 AM

Too many Nova Scotians no longer vote. Forty per cent of us did not make the effort in the last provincial election. Fewer than half the eligible voters bothered to go to the polls in the last municipal and school board elections.

So what's happening? Why are so many of us opting out of the political process? We know this lack of public interest is not peculiar to Nova Scotia but it is as serious or more serious here than in other parts of Canada.

This year, we are observing 250 years of democracy in Nova Scotia. I avoided using the word "celebrating," given that so many Nova Scotians are not participating fully in our democracy. An essential role of citizens in a democracy is to decide for themselves who they want to represent them in our elected bodies. But many of us don't seem to care, or at least don't care enough to make our choices. Those who are elected must wonder what kind of a mandate they enjoy when so many citizens have turned their backs on the whole system.

I am sure there are more than a few reasons for this disengagement from the political system. The Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia is satisfied it has found one reason, and that is secrecy in government. Governments of all political stripes in Canada and beyond will deny this with some vigour, pointing to their freedom of information legislation as proof they are transparent. But first they would have to show they accept all the requirements of that law to be open and accountable.

As it happens our Nova Scotia FOIPOP Act goes farther than any other such legislation in the country in this area of accountability. Our Act cites as its bold purpose "to ensure that public bodies are fully accountable to the public." It is clear we have a right, not a privilege, to have the information we want and need in order to participate in the decision-making and to vote as informed citizens.

This means that access to the information should be trouble-free, it should be provided without undue delay, and at little or no cost. Surely, that's what freedom of information means.

This anniversary year is a good time for us to take stock of how our democracy is working. We will miss a wonderful opportunity to promote and enhance our democracy if we do nothing more than mark the 250th anniversary and encourage our citizens to get out and vote. Citizens will vote when they feel involved and connected to their communities. They will stay away from the polls if they don't.

Voters must feel they are making a difference, not every four years or so, but every day. Participation is linked to knowledge. If you don't have enough information, you can't participate intelligently and effectively. When access to information is thwarted, people who want to participate turn away in frustration and common sense suggests that they are less likely to make the effort to vote.

In a true democracy, freedom of information legislation would be redundant, save exceptional cases that are truly linked to national security, personal privacy or business competitiveness. Even in those cases, proof should be shown. Environment issues, such as reviews of proposals that will change the nature and quality of citizens' lives, should not fall into any of these categories.

When government engages in secrecy, when government forces citizens to undertake expensive and unwieldy application procedures and appeals to get information about their own communities; when bureaucrats read the freedom of information legislation to find exceptions instead of facilitating the release of information, the government is saying it doesn't trust its citizens. Why then should citizens trust government enough to vote?

In this 250th year of democracy, we are reading reports that the Department of Education is pondering whether a school board vacancy should be filled by byelection or by appointment. The cost of byelections when so few people vote in them appears to be the issue. I'm sure that the department will recognize this would be a perilous path to follow. The problem can't be solved by interrupting democratic processes as practical as this particular case might sound. No one argues that democracy is practical, or efficient. Winston Churchill described democracy as the worst form of government, except for all the rest.

At the end of this month, Canada, the United States and some 60 or more countries will be observing Right to Know Week. It's a good time for us all to reconsider decisions to step away and, instead, put pressure on our provincial and municipal governments and our MLAs and councillors to commit themselves to improving the administration of the FOIPOP Act to ensure that no one is denied access to information because the $25 application fee and related processing costs are too burdensome or the process too frustrating. In our upcoming municipal and school board elections, let us challenge candidates to commit to transparency and full accountability.

The Democracy 250 Committee is to be applauded for taking its message into the schools. That's a good start and I'm sure it realizes it is only a start to getting our citizens re-engaged. We must directly address the reasons for citizen apathy and cynicism towards politics.

Darce Fardy is president of the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia.

 
 

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