The Coordination of Access to Information Requests System, also known as CAIRS, was a database of freedom of information requests made to the federal government of Canada under the Access to Information Act. It was operated by the Department of Public Works and Government Services. It was created in 1989 to internally track requests, and eventually allowed for access to previously filed requests, previously released documents, and then current requests. By 2008, millions of documents are available through CAIRS. In 2001, Public Works spent C$166,000 upgrading the system.
Effective April 1, 2008, the Treasury Board has stated that "the requirement to update CAIRS is no longer in effect". Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained this decision as a result of CAIRS being "deemed expensive, deemed to slow down the access to information." Treasury Board President Vic Toews described the system as a tool used to inhibit freedom of information:
"If anyone made a request that was considered sensitive, the request was shipped to the appropriate Liberal minister. At that point the Liberal minister would manage, control or delay the request. That was the purpose of the system. That is a pretty convenient system the Liberals had, but it is not one that the government will continue with."
In response, Liberal Leader of the Opposition Stéphane Dion described Harper's government as "the most secretive government in the history of our country."
While the government cited Alastair Roberts, a Syracuse University political scientist, as a critic of CAIRS, Roberts publicly commented that he was not in favour of shutting down the system, saying "They really don't care what I think about CAIRS or any other aspect of ATI ...f they did they would have taken my advice about CAIRS a few years ago when I said they ought to switch on the capacity to make the entire thing publicly accessible."
Famous quotes containing the words access, information, requests and/or system:
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing—it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
—Bible: New Testament, Philippians 4:6.
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so—called educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)