B.C. Rise News, Politics

For a democracy to function properly and to build public trust, the government needs to be accountable to the people. Part of being accountable means the government needs to be transparent and not afraid of public scrutiny. Over the years we have seen a trend with governments causing long delays or even straight censoring FOI requests with an unnecessary amount of redactions and causing long delays which most often end up turning into a complaint to the Privacy Commissioners Office..

Our Idea:

• Modernize the way the government releases publicly owned information. Pro actively releasing documents can save time and money not only for the government but will provide a benefit to B.C. citizens and media groups as well. A new Freedom of Information framework is needed in this digital age. Government should be prioritizing large government projects and public interest topics to be released even if no one has asked for it yet. With a searchable database accessible to the current public facing website. Consequences to government when necessary.
• Modernize code of conduct for politicians expanding to also include social media use. There’s a clear rise in government elected officials that have become voter blocking fanatic’s and blocking anyone that has a different opinion. If the government or politicians are afraid to be publicly scrutinized, its probably not in the best interest of the public. For example: Elected officials and politicians shouldn’t be blocking people on their government messaging social media accounts. This would apply to all levels of government in British Columbia.