Khan Report Blocked, Despite Tory Promise On Secrecy

Mr. Harper appointed Mr. Khan, then a Liberal MP, to a post as his special adviser on the Middle East in August of 2006. Mr. Khan promised then to make his report public before leaving on his 16-day Middle East trip, which cost $38,000. But the Prime Minister declined to release it. Mr. Khan later switched sides to the Tories. Now, the Privy Council Office, the central government department headed by the Prime Minister, has responded to an access-to-information request by saying that it has no such report under its "control." A PCO official, Susan Fitzmorris, said that's because records in the Prime Minister's Office - which now has 92 employees - are not covered by the access law. The government's assertion that ministers' offices are not covered by the access law is not new: In 1999, Jean Chrétien's government began refusing access requests by saying that the minister's office is not part of the department they head. That interpretation was contested in court by then-information commissioner John Reid, and sharply criticized by the Conservatives and their predecessor parties, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives. Mr. Harper promised in the last election campaign to scrap it. The Conservative campaign platform promised that the party's first task would be to pass an "accountability act" that would "implement" Mr. Reid's recommendations for reform. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071029.waccess29/BNStory/National/home [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 31, 2007]

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