By Canadian Press

Defence Department accused of using pandemic to withhold info from Parliament

Jun 3, 2020 | 2:03 AM

OTTAWA — The Department of National Defence is being accused of trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to withhold information from Parliament and Canadians.

There has been widespread concern over various federal departments failing to respond to access-to-information requests but the Opposition Conservatives say the problem is much worse at the Defence Department.

Conservative defence critic James Bezan points to the department’s failure to respond to a large number of questions on the order paper in recent months, which it blamed on the pandemic.

Bezan says that stands in contrast to other departments having continued to answer order paper questions, a key way MPs get details about the inner workings of federal departments.

Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux also reported last week that the Defence Department blamed COVID-19 for its failure to respond to his request for an update on the government’s plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on new military gear in the coming years.

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The Defence Department says it is committed to transparency and has responded to a dozen order paper questions since April, but the pandemic has limited access to certain records and databases and forced it to allocate key staff to other tasks.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2020.

The Canadian Press