Editing Thirty-year rule (section)

==Canada==
{{also|Access to Information Act}}
The [[Supreme Court of Canada]] has previously argued in favour of Cabinet confidentiality. In the decision ''[[Babcock v AG Canada]]''<ref>2002 SCC 57 at paragraph 18</ref> the court explained the reason as:<ref name=tb>[https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/access-information-privacy/privacy/confidences-queen-privy-council-canada-cabinet-confidences.html canada.ca: "Confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada (Cabinet confidences)"], 2014-04-30</ref>
{{cquote|The process of democratic governance works best when Cabinet members charged with government policy and decision-making are free to express themselves around the Cabinet table unreservedly.}}
To preserve this rule of confidentiality, subsection 70(1) of the ''[[Privacy Act (Canada)|Privacy Act]]'' provides that the Act does not apply to confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. Other notable cases that expand upon the doctrine of cabinet confidentiality include ''Canada (Minister of Environment) v. Canada (Information Commissioner), 2003 FCA 68'' and ''Quinn v. Canada (Prime Minister), 2011 FC 379''.<ref name=tb/> As of 2013, after a time lag of 20 years Canadians can submit access-to-information requests for cabinet records through the [[Privy Council Office (Canada)|Privy Council Office]], but this comes at a cost of $5 per request and can take months to process.<ref name=fb/> In May 2018, it was disclosed that the [[Supreme Court of Canada]] under Chief Justice [[Beverley McLachlin]] had placed a "50-year from the time they rule on a case" embargo on public access to files related to the deliberations of the judges.<ref name=gam>[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-supreme-court-of-canada-places-50-year-embargo-on-public-access-to/ theglobeandmail.com: "Supreme Court of Canada to keep records of deliberations secret for at least 50 years"], 14 May 2018</ref>

According to Archivist Michael Dufresne, it was not until 1940 and the advent of the [[Second World War]] that Cabinet kept an agenda and minutes of its deliberations.<ref name=laccc>[https://thediscoverblog.com/tag/government-records/ Library and Archives Canada Blog: "The beginning of the Conclusions: documenting the exercise of power"], 16 Feb 2018</ref> From 1867 to 1940, a succession of six men served as [[Clerk of the Privy Council (Canada)|Clerk of the Privy Council]], and their duties included serving as the only institutional memory bank of the Government of Canada. The appointment in 1940 of [[Arnold Heeney|Arnold Danforth Patrick Heeney]]<ref>''sic?''</ref> as Clerk and as first Secretary to the Cabinet changed the format of memory bank from biological to scriptural. Heeney was surprised upon arrival by the informal ways in which important business was conducted:<ref name=laccc/>
{{cquote|I found it shattering to discover that the highest committee in the land conducted its business in such a disorderly fashion that it employed no agenda and no minutes were taken. The more I learned about Cabinet practices, the more difficult it was for me to understand how such a regime could function at all.}}

Order-in-Council PC 1940-1121 of March 25, 1940 ushered in a significant change in the documentation of government. The Order-in-Council read, in part:<ref name=laccc/>
{{cquote|The great increase in the work of the Cabinet... has rendered it necessary to make provision for the performance of additional duties of a secretarial nature relating principally to the collecting and putting into shape of agenda of Cabinet meetings, providing of information and material necessary for the deliberations of the Cabinet and the drawing up of records of the results, for communication to the departments concerned...}}

Heeney established procedures and for the first time recorded the minutes and conclusions of a cabinet body – the Cabinet War Committee.<ref name=ccgc/> In 1942, the Statutory Orders and Regulations Division was set up under PC 7992, 4 September 1942. Also under PC 7992, a registry for maintaining orders and minutes of council, Treasury Board Minutes and other government orders was established.<ref name=ccgc>[http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=1 "Archives Search"], 2018-05-20
</ref> It was not until 1944 that the formal collection of "Cabinet Conclusions" was created.<ref name=laccc/>

In the early 1980s, the PCO began a voluntary transfer of cabinet records, which had been declassified after a 30-year holding period, to the National Archives (which became [[Library and Archives Canada]] in 2004) where they became publicly available,<ref name=fb/> under the label "Cabinet Conclusions".<ref name=cc>[http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/politics-government/cabinet-conclusions/Pages/cabinet-conclusions.aspx Library and Archives Canada: "Cabinet Conclusions"], 2018-02-16</ref> After an initial document dump that included records dated from 1937 to 1952, the PCO released the records on an annual basis.<ref name=fb/>

In 2008, two years after Prime Minister [[Stephen Harper]] was elected, the tradition of annual voluntary releases of Cabinet Conclusions stopped.<ref name=fb>[http://o.canada.com/news/national/release-of-government-documents-backlogged canada.com: "Release of government documents backlogged"], 2 Sep 2013</ref>

In September 2013 while the Harper government was in power, PCO spokesman Raymond Rivet told a news organisation that the office was "committed" to making government documents and information accessible but that "Processing these records requires a significant investment of resources. We will continue to process and release records as resources permit."<ref name=fb/>

In May 2017, it came to light that the Government of Canada was under no obligation to release documentary records after a number of years. [[New Democratic Party|NDP]] [[Member of Parliament (Canada)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) [[Murray Rankin]], a legal scholar, said at the time:<ref name=rankin>[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/government-records-archives-history-1.4129935 cbc.ca: "Government accused of hoarding Canadian history in 'secret' archives"], 25 May 2017</ref>
{{cquote|It's a question of political will. Some countries do this a lot better than Canada. The Americans do. The Swedes do. The British do. We have to catch up.}}

In June 2017, an agreement between the [[Supreme Court of Canada]] and [[Library and Archives Canada]] arranged for the transfer of case-files under a 50-year rule.<ref>[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-supreme-court-of-canada-places-50-year-embargo-on-public-access-to/ theglobeandmail.com: "Supreme Court of Canada to keep records of deliberations secret for at least 50 years"], 14 May 2018</ref>