What is NOT THERE says a lot: Manitoba Education K-12 redact meeting attendees and all discussions entitled "stakeholders"
Freedom of Information (FIPPA) request for all documentation of meetings to discuss COVID-19 policy in the Department of Education in Manitoba are, disturbingly, redacted. See for yourself.
Over the past 20 months, Manitobans have experienced unprecedented restrictions and disregard for civil liberties without a scientific justification for the collateral damage caused by their provincial government's C-19 Policy. Since July 2021, through Freedom of Information (FIPPA) requests, our organization, Dignity of Risk Alliance, has found that the Government frequently appears to be operating in a clandestine way - meeting attendees are largely redacted from documents, and meeting minutes have not been regularly provided; given follow-up, we have been informed that minutes do not exist. When it comes to Manitoba Education K-12 they stopped reporting meeting attendees in meeting minute records as of December, 2020. Here are the June 18th, 2020, minutes shared. Note the amount of blank space, and “Stakeholder Updates” completely redacted as noted by the long empty column. Do you consider this acceptable? Who are the stakeholders of our children’s education that should be hidden?
There are dozens of committees from several departments that have assembled the ever-evolving C-19 policy, and are we to believe no one recorded the decisions made, nor the criteria used, or who made them? What are the inclusion and exclusion criteria used to weigh international and local scientific research? We deserve to know.
Dignity of Risk Alliance is determined to recover government documents and data that describe the evidence-based rationale for the government's Policy Response to C-19 so as to assess its scientific merit. There is a process in place to appeal to an Ombudsman to obtain information that is being withheld. We are awaiting a response to our request for full information disclosure of Manitoba Education meeting documents. We are prepared to go to court if we are dissatisfied with the Ombudsman’s decision.
Below you can read the meeting minutes from dates between April 3, 2020 to June 9, 2021. If they do not all appear in your email, you can come to the dignityofrisk.substack.com site to download them. White space, means “white out”, redacted or deleted information. We are expecting more up-to-date documents in the next month. For now, have a look for yourself and let us, and the government, know if you have questions, comments or concerns.
What is NOT THERE says a lot: Manitoba Education K-12 redact meeting attendees and all discussions entitled "stakeholders". Who are the stakeholders that we are not supposed to know about? Wouldn’t you like to know?
Although we have not yet received a response, here is our letter to the Ombudsman requesting complete information:
If you have any comments you would like to share, you can include them below this post.
We are raising money that we need to pay for FIPPA documents, office supplies and operating costs. We have already spent close to $1500 on recovery of documents, countless hours reviewing relevant C-19 information and preparing FIPPA requests; we want this project to continue and thought you might too. The turn around time for requests is 30 days, although the government is frequently taking 60 to 90 days to send requested documentation or data. We are still waiting for others and have had to file complaints with the Ombudsman. We intend on publishing all documents on our Dignity of Risk Alliance Newsletter. Our team includes academics and publishers as well as technical experts. Please support and share our campaign. Any amount is greatly appreciated.