Newspaper association audit of information laws shows wide disparity

January 10 2009

CP

OTTAWA — Police forces in Canada continue to withhold key information from the public about how officers are using Taser stun guns, says a new report on freedom-of-information laws.

Police in Regina, Saskatoon and Saint John, N.B., refused to release any so-called use-of-force reports, which must be completed when officers draw their Tasers, says an audit commissioned by the Canadian Newspaper Association.

Winnipeg police agreed to release the information but at a cost of $4,500, and Hamilton police claimed that Ontario law prevented them from making such reports public.

Other city forces – in Halifax, Fredericton, Calgary and Victoria, for example – did provide the information, without charge.

The RCMP last year apologized for the excessive secrecy surrounding its own use-of-force Taser reports, which initially had key information removed when released to The Canadian Press and other news media.

Inconsistencies across Canada were a major finding of the association’s annual audit of Canada’s freedom-of-information laws, this one organized by Fred Vallance-Jones, a journalism professor at the University of King’s College, in Halifax. It’s the fourth such audit carried out by the daily newspaper group.

The exercise involved sending 219 requests to 22 municipal governments and their police services, 10 provinces and the Yukon and 11 federal departments and Crown corporations. The requests were made by students acting as ordinary citizens.

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FULL ARTICLE: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iiyXlw_Exh3gOT4netW6BhAwFEJw