Duty to Document Zoom Premiere
Channel: Trust and Records
Date: 2021-04-27

DUTY TO DOCUMENT
How governments avoid transparency and sideline citizens
through 'oral government' and deleting public records
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Presented by InterPARES Trust 
and the Canadian Centre for Information and Privacy Studies


This Zoom session includes the premiere of the documentary 'Duty to Document' (17 min), followed by an expert panel and a public Q&A session.


The documentary uses an infamous Canadian incident -- the 'Triple Delete' scandal -- to illustrate how many governments around the world are moving to a form of "oral government" -- failing to keep essential records of their decisions, and even illegally destroying records to avoid accountability. This subverts freedom of information laws and suppresses democratic participation.

In 2015 the government of British Columbia was caught improperly deleting email records concerning missing and murdered indigenous women along the "Highway of Tears". The scandal opened a window on an entire toolkit of bad records practices that go on today within governments across Canada and around the world.

Speakers and panelists:
- Luciana Duranti, Professor, Archival Studies, School of Information, University of British Columbia
- Mike Larsen, President, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association; Co-author of Brokering Access: Power, Politics, and Freedom of Information Process in Canada
- Victoria Lemieux, Associate Professor, Archival Studies, School of Information, University of B.C.; Lead, Blockchain research cluster, Blockchain@UBC
- Andrew MacLeod, Legislative Bureau Chief, The Tyee magazine