During the 2015 federal election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau vowed to make sweeping changes to access to information. Those changes would have included bringing ministers’ offices – including his own – under access law and making the government “open by default.”

Those and other access commitments in the Liberal Party’s 2015 platform were never adopted, though the government eventually made some changes to federal access law as part of Bill C-58, including abolishing all charges for requests beyond the initial $5 filing fee.

Michel Drapeau, a lawyer and one of the country’s leading experts on federal access to information laws, was frustrated that the government has delayed taking action on recommendations and instead promised to once again review access to information in 2025.

“I am convinced that the bulk of the reasons explaining the impossible delays and backlogs now faced by the [access] system is fixable right now without further study,” said Mr. Drapeau, who testified during the hearings last October.

Freelance journalist and access expert Dean Beeby told The Globe that the government’s response amounted to a dismissal of the committee’s work. “This is just a complete brush-off of the committee, and it’s a brush-off of all the people who appeared before the committee who were just asking for basic problems to be fixed,” he said.

Mr. Beeby testified at the House committee last December. During his appearance, he noted that the committee’s study was at least the 16th review of federal access to information legislation.

“In this country, we love to study transparency laws thoroughly to ensure we don’t actually get around to fixing them,” Mr. Beeby said at the time.

A career civil servant described tension between their commitment to challenging rights abuses and their job.

“I’m trying to educate people about Palestine through social media, but I’m worried I’ll lose my security clearance for criticizing the president or blaming the U.S. for civilian massacre,” they told HuffPost. “I feel like there’s no place for me in America anymore, and I’m on thin ice with my clearance because of my heritage and because I care about my people dying.”

The seemingly stifled internal debate undercuts Biden’s narrative that his administration is historically diverse and open to perspectives from traditionally marginalized groups, including on questions of global affairs.

A career civil servant described tension between their commitment to challenging rights abuses and their job.

“I’m trying to educate people about Palestine through social media, but I’m worried I’ll lose my security clearance for criticizing the president or blaming the U.S. for civilian massacre,” they told HuffPost. “I feel like there’s no place for me in America anymore, and I’m on thin ice with my clearance because of my heritage and because I care about my people dying.”

The seemingly stifled internal debate undercuts Biden’s narrative that his administration is historically diverse and open to perspectives from traditionally marginalized groups, including on questions of global affairs.

Archive: [ https://archive.ph/6ZZy3 ]

University of Ottawa professor and expert in conflict in the Middle East Ruby Dagher told The Hill Times on Oct. 11 that, as a Lebanese Canadian, she is deeply concerned about what she sees as a lack of nuance from Canadian political leaders.

“Hamas does not equal Palestinians. Hezbollah does not equal Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” said Dagher, who added she had been on the phone with her father in Lebanon to check on him following reports of clashes on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Dagher stressed that while she condemns Hamas’ actions “in every way possible,” she is concerned that the rhetoric used by Trudeau and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “and even some words Biden is using,” are similar to the speeches that were given after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

“When you’re having those speeches and you’re playing with people’s emotions and you're framing it from that perspective,” she said, referring to framing the matter as a binary choice of either supporting Israel or being on the side of terrorists, “the Palestinians are no longer Palestinians. You want revenge against people who did this, and the separating line between Hamas and Palestinians doesn’t exist anymore.”

“People stop thinking and they start becoming vengeance-oriented, and they can’t see the humanity behind what they’re saying,” said Dagher.