Via Paul Wells at Macleans, an intriguing blog post by Sun News reporter Elizabeth Thompson in Mystery Meetings:

There are public meetings on Parliament Hill. There are in camera meetings. However, Parliament's Citizenship and Immigration committee have come up with a new one - "informal meetings."

No, that doesn't mean that MPs show up in jeans and running shoes. It means that they don't tell anyone that they are going to meet, let alone that they were going to spend four hours this week grilling top immigration department officials on some of the biggest hot button issues facing that ministry.

We should note these are all party meetings, which means these off-the-record sessions are being tacitly endorsed by the right, centre, and left of Canadian politics.

Why?

This tidbit serves to underscore the larger problem of inappropriate government secrecy identified this week as the federal Information Commissioner Robert Marleau tabled to Parliament (Chronicle-Herald) a hard-hitting report (PDF | HTML) which gives failing grades to many major federal departments for their handling of information and access to information requests.

Canadians expect and deserve far greater efficiency and accountability from their government. Robert Marleau, federal Information Commissioner

I've never seen a candidate stand up and say "If elected I shall do my utmost to hide the truth from you" yet that is exactly what we are increasingly getting from some of our elected representatives and the ministries they are entrusted to lead.