For more than 40 years, we have had a federal law on Access to Information (ATI) to permit the public to ask for government records. Hardly cause for celebration.

After well more than 3,000 tries, mostly thwarted, I now view ATI as a different acronym: the government’s Arrogance Toward Inquiries, an Antagonism Targeting Investigators, with Administered Tricks Involved and an Ability To Ignore.

I stopped ages ago keeping a running list of the federal records I thought I could obtain under the law that provides me the right to know—turns out, all along it’s been the government’s right to no.

There again this week was the frustrated federal Information Commissioner, Caroline Maynard, complaining that government was withholding records it ought to disclose. She is the latest in a long list of commissioners singing the same tune and pleading for a dance partner in vain. In opposition, leaders call for the law to be heeded and strengthened; in power, leaders at best feign amnesia about their promises and at worst break the spirit and bend the letter of the law to callously disrespect the public.

I’d love to publish, for instance, the options cabinet weighed for a multibillion-dollar program, including costed scenarios, the trade-offs and the deliberated risks. But those records remain confidential for 20 years (nestled in the law’s section 69) before you can even try to get them.

I’d like to print the government submission for a major procurement, with its rationale and the price envelope. Turns out the costliest decisions are the least visible (same problem, same section 69).

I’d like to lay out the per-unit prices for what Canada buys, like how much per rifle, per laptop, per software seat or per vehicle. You’ll get the total contract value, but the line-item numbers are severed as confidential commercial information (section 20), so you never see whether the Crown paid a fair price or a premium.

I’d like to explain why costs exploded, specifically the change........

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