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Liberals struggle to live up to their own standards of 'openness and transparency'

  • John Ivison

  • National Newswatch

  • April 6, 2016

The first casualty of the era of open government may be … open government. Justin Trudeau has shrugged off two emerging political entanglements — the Parliamentary Budget Office's criticism of the federal budget and blowback over a $500-per-ticket fundraising event with the justice minister — as inconsequential because of the Liberal policy of “openness and transparency.” But there is a disconnect between the prime minister's words and an increasingly inconvenient truth. A glance at both issues makes obvious the government has been neither open nor transparent. First, the new PBO report: Jean-Denis Fréchette's office said Wednesday the Liberals have made it more difficult for parliamentarians to scrutinize the public finances. This is in part because the government has