While the Charter lets us dream, the Access to Information Act is a nightmare

While the Access to Information Act and Charter of Rights and Freedoms were born from the same parent a few months apart, they have not acted together as one co-operative friendly force. Forty years have passed and even greater gulfs growing between the two acts.

Queen Elizabeth and prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, pictured April 17, 1982, signing the Constitution. It's time to put the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Access to Information Act on the same page so that Canadians' rights to know can no longer be ignored, trampled on or based on the state controlling what Canadians get or not get disclosed, writes Ken Rubin. Photograph courtesy of Flickr/Robert Cooper

Opinion

BY KEN RUBIN

June 9, 2022

OTTAWA—Two pieces of once-promising Canadian legislation have turned out very differently 40 years on. One is Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enacted on April 17, 1982, and the other is Canada's Access to Information Act, given royal assent on July 7, 1982. Both claimed to advance and pr...

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