Brokering Access

Is the business of public officials any of the public'sbusiness? Most Canadians would argue that it is - that wecitizens are entitled to enquire and get answers about ourgovernment's actions. Access to information (ATI) is widelyregarded as a fundamental right, consistent with the notion that ademocratic government should be open, accountable, and citizen-driven.Yet, on a practical level, there still exists a struggle between thepublic's pursuit of transparency and the government'spersistent culture of secrecy.

Drawing together the unique perspectives of social scientists, journalists, and ATI advocates, "Brokering Access" explores thepolicies and practices surrounding access to information at thefederal, provincial, and municipal levels. The book's foursections each explore a different aspect of ATI within a theoretical orpractical framework. Beginning with a look at the history of ATImechanisms and a summary of the key features of contemporary ATI laws, "Brokering Access" goes on to tackle issues of security andinformation control; illustrates how ATI can be used as a dataproduction method in the social sciences; and finally chronicles theexperiences of some of Canada's most prominent journalistic usersof ATI. This volume sheds new light on a subject that affects allCanadians.

Mike Larsen is an instructor in the CriminologyDepartment of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. KevinWalby is an assistant professor of sociology at the Universityof Victoria.

Contributors: Reem Bahdi, Jim Bronskill, AnnCavoukian, Tia Dafnos, Willem de Lint, Gary Dickson, Yavar Hameed, Steve Hewitt, Sean P. Hier, Suzanne Legault, David McKie, JeffreyMonaghan, Justin Pich, Jim Rankin, Ann Rees, Fred Vallance-Jones, andMatthew G. Yeager