Striking a Balance Bill 29? Logic tells us otherwise!

Over the past week we have heard Government MHA's suggest that "frivolous and vexatious" requests are part of the reason they have to change access to information laws.

It is commonly agreed that more information will be kept secret and some information harder to get because of the amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Bill29).

Ministers stood on their feet and dragged out samples of such requests - and while this is not the norm - they pointed out they were compelled to stop such wastage of taxpayer money.

Here's the other side of the balance: Newfoundland and Labrador has suffered many more fraudulent and bad resource deals than it has suffered "vexatious and frivolous" information requests - and the cost to the taxpayer has been far more severe from the bad and/or fraudulent and/or corrupt deals.

The billions of dollars essentially robbed from our people - be it fish, energy, minerals, forests, or cash far outweighs the few thousand dollars suffered from "frivolous and vexatious" access to information requests.

So what does the government do? Well they tighten information to protect business. Yes that says it all about fairness and balance.

We as a people should conclude that there is something to hide - as not to do so would be illogical and open us up to another 50 years of bad resource deals.

I have a request of our media - please research and present all the losses we have suffered from bad and/or corrupt business deals and compare that dollar value to the amount lost from "frivolous and vexatious" access to information requests.

While we are at it - which caused more harm to the tenuous trust we have in government; the few "frivolous and vexatious" requests presented or the marching of 4 former MHA's to jail?

Yes we should strike a balance regarding access to information - but Bill 29 is not that balance. It is a lopsided - one way - ticket to hiding information. What has been the result of that approach in our past?