What the FIPPA?!

Lately it seems that rage about Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) requests are all the rage.

As The Uniter‘s own Lauren Parsons reported last week, 2011 ushered in new amendments to the original provincial act that is designed to provide the public access to records and documents from public bodies like government departments, regional health authorities and universities.

But as the article reflects, the changes aren’t doing much to make the process of getting information any smoother or quicker according to current and future journalists like public policy reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press, Mary Agnes Welch.

Not only Welch but journalism students in Red River College’s Creative Communications program who were tasked with familiarizing themselves with the ins and outs of the FIPPA process and then requesting information on a specific topic also voiced their discontent with aspects of the experience.

In the same vein of discontent, a recent Free Press article highlights the fact that the Manitoba Ombudsman has and will continue to investigate various organizations that process FIPPA requests to monitor how effectively and adequately they respond to public inquiries.

According to the ombudsman, the Workers Compensation Board is the only of the five bodies examined this year that required no recommendations for improvement. The investigations are scheduled to continue for the next several years.

While it’s important to note that under FIPPA the province is also responsible to protect the personal information of individual Manitobans, when the province begins to investigate its own ability to appropriately respond to queries, clearly it can’t be a good sign.

Good, balanced journalism is based on provable facts. While anecdotal recounting of situations by people is crucial for readers to understand an issue on a personal level in order to have rumblings and rumours substantiated in the public forum, it’s necessary to have the numbers, statistics and reports to back them up.

This is why FIPPA is so important for those in the news business. Without those tangible pieces of information, significant stories about everything from health care to crime to education and beyond may not be taken seriously or even see the light of day.

If the ombudsman’s investigations continue with similar results in the coming years, one can only wonder what stories the public isn’t being given the opportunity to hear.