Article content

It’s a good thing ‘Access to Information’ isn’t a class in school. If it were, Stephen Harper’s government would flunk — and flunk hard, according to a report from a prominent media advocacy group that awarded the prime minister an F- on the subject this week.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Report gives Harper government a failing grade for transparency Back to video

For the second year in a row, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression gave the prime minister’s government the lowest grade possible, saying it has taken longer than ever to access information on Mr. Harper’s watch and that the information they finally get is far more incomplete.

The new report, called Like Sheep to the Slaughter

, says Canadians need to stay alert and protective of their right to freedom of information. It also points to specific examples of how Canadian media have been treated when trying to access information, such as when a Public Works bureaucrat moved to “unrelease” information to the Canadian Press.

More than half of the federal institutions surveyed for their performance on access to information sunk below the average. Five of them failed, the report reads. Its statistics say 44% of access to information requests filed to the federal government are not returned in 30 days.