Statement on the government’s commitment to release the results of the National Security Consultation

We're welcoming a commitment from the federal government to make all consultation submissions publicly accessible

The following statement can be attributed to Victoria Henry, OpenMedia’s Digital Rights Campaigner:

OpenMedia welcomes a recent statement from Ministers Goodale and Wilson-Raybould that the government "will be transparent in informing Canadians" about the results of the National Security Consultation. The Ministers specify the following:

"A public report that summarizes the input will be released in the new year. Summaries from our public town halls will remain available at Canada.ca/national-security-consultation, and we are in the process of making the online and email submissions accessible to all Canadians through the Open Government portal."

Their comments come in response to a joint letter from over 30 leading civil society organizations and privacy experts demanding full transparency and the proactive release of the full, anonymized results of the consultation, published December 15.

Tens of thousands of responses have been submitted to the consultation, of which over 15,000 come from OpenMedia supporters. Many of those same supporters have been calling their local MPs to demand precisely this kind of transparency on the results of the consultation.

This represents a significant step forward in transparency from Public Safety Canada, who met with OpenMedia in October and stated at the time that they had no intention of releasing all of the individual submissions, and were instead only planning to provide an independent synopsis of the consultation results in the new year.

Full transparency on the results of the Consultation on National Security is a vital step towards restoring trust in the Trudeau government’s process - and provides heightened accountability for any changes to be made to Bill C-51. In the meantime, Canadians must continue to pressure and ensure that any legislative changes reflect the wishes of those consulted, and bring back much needed personal security and privacy to the lives of ordinary Canadians.