Source: Canoe.ca

OTTAWA - CBC has deemed that virtually all correspondence between the state broadcaster and the government minister it reports to is off limits to the public.

An access to information request made on behalf of QMI Agency for the correspondence between CBC and former heritage minister Liza Frulla returned 97 pages of correspondence, most of them reduced to an address and salutation at the top of an otherwise blank page.

Frulla, who now works for CBC’s French-language station RDI as a political commentator, was minister of heritage for 18 months in former prime minister Paul Martin's cabinet.

A request for the correspondence with Frulla was submitted in September 2007. It took CBC nearly three years to release the documents, with most information removed. CBC claims that the information either touches on its programming, is advice to a minister or that releasing the documents would be detrimental to the economic interests of Canada.

The information not removed from the documents consists mostly of congratulatory letters on appointments or promotional-type material found on websites.

CBC in engaged in an ongoing fight over what documents it releases under the Access to Information Act. The state broadcaster is currently fighting the federal information commissioner in court to block the release of some documents. In the new year, MPs will begin a study of the way CBC handles access requests.

© Canoe.ca