As a reporter, there are many reasons I might file a Freedom of Information request. Most often I find it is for some sort of background information for a story. I’ve filed a half dozen of these requests during my time as a reporter in Grand Forks. Sometimes I like the outcome of my requests; sometimes (maybe even more often), I’m disappointed by what can’t be released.
Council had a discussion last week about the Freedom of Information budget for the coming year. Apparently, one particularly exhaustive request will require more staff time and other resources to fill than most requests that come the city’s way. While I’m both pleased and slightly disappointed to say it was not I who filed this behemoth of a request, I did take an interest in the discussion of in-camera information and the need for an FOI program that council had while deciding on the budget addition.
A disclaimer: I usually steer away from addressing council issues in my columns because people need to trust my coverage without wondering whether it has been clouded by my opinion. But there’s another way of negating bias: acknowledging that reporters sometimes have opinions, and this is mine.
It is my opinion that the freedom of information program is vital to the city and even more important for citizens in holding their elected officials to account. This is an opinion I hold because I work as a reporter; FOIs are an important tool in this line of work and obviously, I believe strongly in free access to information and freedom of the press. But, it’s not specific to me: I believe any resident of the city should have reasonable access to government records, and that our government should facilitate that process.
I was not impressed with the discussion at council last week. Very little of the discussion about freedom of information dealt with the request before council to amend the budget; instead, there was a condemnation of specific requests that council deemed frivolous filed to the city and grandstanding on government transparency.
The discussion amounted to whether the information for one specific FOI should have been made public in the first place, the role of in-camera information, and whether or not some requests were a waste of time and resources.
There could have been a discussion that would have better served the community. It would have involved looking at the evolving needs of the city staff when fulfilling FOI requests, the FOI budget, and the long-term outlook for this service in Grand Forks.
Will council consistently need to allocate resources to FOIs in future budgets? Is this request a one-off, or can we expect more requests this extensive? Can staff continue to handle requests like this in the years ahead, if volume continues to grow — or are there other solutions that don’t pull from staff time? In the long-term, how can records be managed to give citizens access to more information, negating the need for some requests? These are the questions that should have been asked.
Hopefully, these discussions will happen in the months ahead as staff prepare an update of the city’s Freedom of Information bylaw — but in the meantime, we need to double down on the issues in front of us. After all, we’re only six months from an election.