Our fellow traveler Bill Dokosh in Canada tips us to this article in the Toronto Star, “Don't tell anything to anybody,”
discussing what the Canadian information commissioner learned after
seven years on the job.  The post is, essentially, responsible for
ensuring that Canadian citizens get access to government
documents. 

“As
a former Liberal cabinet minister, former opposition backbencher and
former lobbyist for a powerful national association, John Reid thought
he knew what he was getting into when he was named Canada's Information
Commissioner, seven years ago.  
   He was wrong, Reid now admits.
   He
had no inkling that senior bureaucrats reached top-level decisions
verbally to avoid leaving a paper trail. He never expected to fight an
all-out court battle for access to something as innocuous as the Prime
Minister's daily schedule.    Most of all, he did not realize how
hard it was for ordinary Canadians to get scraps of ostensibly public
information, gathered on their behalf with their tax dollars.”

Amen.