Canadian Broadcasting Network

gets shy:

...In the last three years, QMI Agency has filed thousands of ATIPs, trying to find out how and why CBC spends taxpayer money on board meetings in Iqaluit, executive expenses, anchor salaries and bidding for commercial or sports properties.

But in most cases, our ATIPs have been ignored or rejected, with the Corporation claiming exemptions for any information related to news, programming and creative work. Many ATIPS came back with thousands pages blank or blacked out, like top-secret intelligence documents.

We complained to the Access to Information Commissioner, who took the CBC to the federal court. She wanted to see if the CBC was justified in refusing our requests. The CBC fought and lost the case, but has now appealed the decision. It costs money to fight these cases in court but, again, the CBC won't tell taxpayers how much money they are spending to keep their files closed.

So, in our on-going efforts to hold CBC accountable to taxpayers, QMI is going to run a regular series of stories on the corporation. We're going to call it "Down the drain."

Today, we're starting with some of our favourite "rejections." These are simple questions we've asked that the CBC refuses to answer. Feel free to send us your questions or thoughts so we keep up the pressure for accountability.