NAFTA -- Re: Help on Operations and Procedures and Policy Manuals for Provincial and Town Law Enforcement in Canada

[Dwight Hines]

Dear Toby, Mark and Listers:

Canada and the US are bound by NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) which, among many other specific points, does require a certain amount of harmonization of requirements in many areas between Canada and the U.S.  I'm not sure about information access, and I'm not sure how President Obama's Executive Order on open records fouimpacts on treaties, but treaties are the supreme law of the land in the U.S.  

I also don't know about Canadian Executive Orders, or Parliamentary machinations, but I would think it makes good sense to have at least a modicum of electronic access to all information held by both countries that could have negative or positive influences on the optimal goal achievement of NAFTA.

I'm only interested in the Canadian provinces law enforcement manuals (including fishery)  bordering or near bordering Maine: Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and possibly Newfoundland.  

Attorneys who practice treaty law, which includes NAFTA, charge more money per hour than the whole list makes in a year BUT, we might be able to locate a law student who has interest in Treaty or NAFTA or OAS (Organization of American States), home of InterAmerican Court for Human Rights that has stated access to information is a human right (Both Canada and the US are members of OAS and the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights), and would help us, with the possible supervision on a professor or two, in developing positions for access to documents based on Treaties.

Please let me hear from you,

Dwight

P.S.  I bet you, and I've never bought a lottery ticket because I know about odds, that Canada and the U.S. have more treaties they're jointly signatory to, and bound by, than they have with any other country.

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Toby Mendel <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks Mark. This is not something I have specifically looked into but it is absurd if the manuals are only available in physical form in Ottawa (presumably they are created in electronic form in the first place)!! We should request them and then them post online  :)

Toby

___________________________________

Toby Mendel

Executive Director

 

Centre for Law and Democracy

[hidden email]

Tel:  <a href="tel:%2B1%20902%20431-3688" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

Fax: <a href="tel:%2B1%20902%20431-3689" value="[phone]" target="_blank">[phone]

www.law-democracy.org

On 26 Feb 2013, at 21:16, Mark Weiler wrote:

Hi Dwight,

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police publishes a list of manuals http://infosource.gc.ca/inst/1475/1475-fedemp02-eng.asp#en5690 it is to make available. However, my guess is that there's actually many more manuals.

Section 71 of the Access to Information Act , Canada's Right to Information Act, requires federal departments to make available government manuals that are used to administer programs that affect the public.  But these are only available in facilities which are often in the National Capital Region.

I've petition the House of Commons to make these manuals available on-line, but that day will still have to come.   The Treasury Board Secretariat's response to my petition was that people can get copies of the manual by contacting "the institution's Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator to request a copy of the manuals either through an informal process or through a formal request". My suggestion would be to use the Access to Information Act as it will save time.

Mark

BTW... the technique you are using of gathering manuals to learn of specific documents you can order can be called (in information & library science terminology) as acquiring bibliographic descriptions to increase the precision of your queries.

---

From: Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]>
To: Dwight Hines <[hidden email]>; Mark Weiler <[hidden email]>; Toby Mendel <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 6:46:30 PM
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Help on Operations and Procedures and Policy Manuals for Provincial and Town Law Enforcement in Canada

Perhaps of interest!

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Dwight Hines <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear List:

I've been reviewing Operations, Procedures and Policy Manuals for different county Sheriffs in different states.   These are key because they specify what documents must be created and maintained.  So, FOIA requests can be specific.

Has anyone on the list submitted requests for these manuals to different Canadian law enforcement agencies?

Dwight Hines

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--

Tracey P. Lauriault

Post Doctoral Fellow

Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre

https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault

http://datalibre.ca/
<a href="tel:[phone]" value="[phone]" target="_blank">613-234-2805
 

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss