One of the most popular items that gets “A-TIPPED” — this weird word is used as a verb and it means “filing a request under federal Access to Information and Protection of Privacy legislation” — are the briefing books that newly sworn in cabinet ministers get. When you A-TIP or ATIP something, the government has 30 days to respond. But the ATIP rules allow for the responding department to abitrarily grant itself an extension of that time limit, so long as it cites one of the legislated reasons for an extension. Typically, the most often cited reason for an extension is that the government department has to “consult” with another government department to determine if the record requested can, in fact, be released. These extensions can be anywhere from 30 to 90 days.
So: With that preamble —– about 90 days ago or so, a new cabinet was sworn and I, like dozens of reporters, filed our ATIP requests to get at those briefing books. (We really do try to “dig” out the facts, dear reader, and we’re not always just moping about at the bar complaining about Harper and his press conference lists 🙂 ) Many of those briefing books, or at least parts of them, are now getting released.
What you find in these briefing books varies between departments but there is a general template:
- Describe the department
- Let the new minister know what legislation they’re responsible for
- Describe the “hot” or active issues
- Provide the basic policy framework for some of the policy discussions and, eventually, choices the Minister might make.
For the next few weeks, then, I’ll be going through briefing books and jotting down some notes here.