With all the "political excitement" here at home you might not be following events surrounding four Canadian Senators embroiled in scandal and the request by the Canadian Press for information from the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) relating to the senators. Apparently there are  some 28 pages of "responsive information" that they're trying to get their hands on.

You might be wondering what this has to do with crafting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for The Bahamas.

Well, the PMO is reportedly withholding 27 or the 28 pages so now the Federal Information Commissioner is taking them (the PMO) to court to get the remaining pages under the Access to Information Act.

If the politicians in an "advanced democracy" like Canada, where a FOIA as been in place for a number of years, won't give the details requested, what will happen here?

Unless there is close scrutiny of what will eventually be circulated here in relation to a FOIA there will be even less chance of getting information in cases relating to our political class.

If the political class can simply frustrate the process an FOIA will serve little good.

As Lowe's Law* states, Politician's spend their careers making laws to keep everyone else accountable, and make the average citizen and business play "fair" and "do the right thing", yet, they refuse to hold themselves to the same standards.

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*My tongue in cheek response to the way most Parliaments work.