BackIn the course of presenting his Annual Report 2010-2011 Ontario Ombudsman André Marin called on the government of Ontario to embrace the worldwide trend toward open government, noting that many of his investigations of government organizations revealed a lack of transparency and accountability to Ontarians.
"Ontario has an opportunity to be a leader here," Mr. Marin says in the first annual report of his second five-year term as Ombudsman. "When government decision-making remains closed, those it serves are left frustrated and anxious."
The rise of social media and unprecedented public access to real-time information has had repercussions around the globe – raising public expectations of transparency in government, says Mr. Marin. "The days when governments could control the message and choose how to manage public information are gone," he says, urging the government to think pro-actively about releasing information instead of simply reacting to requests.
The Ombudsman cited several examples of how his work revealed government decisions that were less than transparent – the best known being the expansion of police powers for last summer's G20 summit in Toronto.
The report also includes summaries of many of the thousands of individual cases resolved by the Ombudsman and staff, as well as examples of serious issues that his office flagged and dealt with proactively in meetings with senior officials from the most complained about organizations.
Source: http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/Newsroom/Press-Release/2011/Ombudsman-calls-for-open-government-in.aspx
