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OP-ED: Journalists’ fine usage of Nova Scotia freedom-of-information law shows the need for reform

Nova Scotia is where press freedom originated in Canada

Freedom of information laws ensure that you have the legal right to see official records on health and education, or crime and the environment, or official spending and public safety – records whose production you paid for via your taxes. Nova Scotia can proudly claim to be the first to pass such a statute in Canada (in 1977).

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September 28 to Oct. 4 marks global Right to Know Week. I believe the value of an FOI law is better demonstrated than just asserted. So I compiled an Excel database (without AI) of almost 700 news media stories produced via records obtained under the law, wrote 100-word summaries of each, and posted it at my website – https://canadafoi.ca/nova-scotia-foi/

For example, in 1992, the Globe and Mail showed by FOI that Westray Coal officials were warned of problems involving cave-ins and high levels of methane in the mine where 26 miners later died in a coal dust explosion.

In 2008, after the Workers Compensation Board refused an FOI request to identify the 25 companies that reported the most accidents and injuries (defying a decision by the........

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