TORONTO - There is a growing culture of secrecy in the provincial government which has been building for years and culminated with the "granddaddy of all secret manoeuvres" during the G20 summit, Ontario's ombudsman said Tuesday.
"The problems that my office uncovers in government, the problems that we hear about from thousands of frustrated citizens every year, almost always have to do with secrecy or lack of transparency," ombudsman Andre Marin said in his annual report.
"It culminates into the granddaddy of all secret manoeuvres, which was the non-publication of a regulation which extended extraordinary, likely illegal, powers to the police during the G20."
Marin had already scolded the government over the G20 secret law in a special report last December, calling the arrests and detention of more than 1,100 people during that weekend in "a mass violation of civil rights."
But he returned to that weekend in Toronto Tuesday to illustrate the need for more transparency in government, saying there is a lack of accountability that needs to be addressed.
The problem, Marin said, wasn't unique to the G20 laws, noting a common thread of closed government ranging from cases with the municipal property assessment corporation to the provincial lottery system's initial disinterest in insider wins to the police watchdog Special Investigations Unit.
Marin is planning a second special report on the SUI, which he said has "fundamental, very serious problems" more than two years after his initial report into the watchdog and its "yo-yo oversight."
The agency, Marin said, should be making the findings of its investigations public and putting out annual reports.
There is also what he calls a concerning level of secrecy around the use of force with inmates and lack of reporting of such incidents.
With the rise of social media and access to real-time information, Marin said, the government must be pro-active when it comes to keeping people up to date rather than just reacting to specific requests.
"The province needs to do more than pay lip service to open government," Marin said.
The ombudsman reiterated his call to include the so-called "MUSH" sector is his mandate, noting his office received -- and had to turn away -- almost 2,000 complaints this year about municipalities, universities, school boards, hospital and long term care homes, as well as children's aid societies and police.
In his report, Marin also raised concerns that the province's most vulnerable are too often not getting the help they need.
He found an increase in the number of cases where families are asked to give up custody of their special needs children so they can receive care, as well as complaints about verbally abusive treatment at the agency that deals with the finances of incapacitated people.
Marin also received several complaints about high electricity bills, or ones with unexplained increases, including the case of a woman who was wrongly billed for another apartment unit in her building.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the report showed that the governing Liberals were "more interested in hiding things from people than they are about really being honest about what's going on and solving the problem."
Progressive Conservative critic Frank Kless added the public had a right to know "who's responsible."
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who was in St. Catharines, Ont., on Tuesday, again refused to apologize for passing the secret law and rejected the idea of calling a public inquiry into last summer's G20.
If there is to be an inquiry, the premier said, it would be up to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to call it because it was the federal government's summit.
The government has drafted a protocol to ensure the public is informed if police powers are modified in the future, and accepted Marin's recommendations.
