How to keep secrets from the public: Don't write anything down

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs stood alone at the podium on the afternoon of July 15, when he announced major changes to the province's health-care leadership.

In the span of a few minutes, Higgs dropped three bombshells: he shuffled out the province's health minister, fired the CEO of Horizon Health Network, and dismissed elected board members for both health authorities, replacing them with trustees.

It was a major shakeup, and it was clear the decision came from the premier himself.

"This isn't intended to be permanent, but this is intended to get results," Higgs said that day, referring to the two health authority boards. "And right now I need to see results, and I want to remove the barriers and the roadblocks for our health professionals to achieve them."

But when CBC News filed a right to information request to the Office of the Premier, asking for records about the premier's decision to make changes to health-care leadership, a search returned no records — nothing to help explain to the public how Higgs arrived at such a significant decision.

It's one of several examples of instances where the Higgs government failed to document its work, something public servants in New Brunswick aren't required to do by law.

The concept is called duty to document, and it's something transparency advocates have been calling for in Canada for years.

Keeping records of a government's decision-making is at the core of good democracy, according to Caroline Maynard, the federal information commissioner.

"What we see is if Canadians are not getting the information from our government or from reliable sources, they will then turn to unreliable sources," Maynard said.

"If our government wants their citizens to have confidence in them, I think that they need to provide them with more and more information, so that they can see for themselves what decisions and actions are taken, and based on what kinds of facts and background information."

When asked about the duty-to-document concept, Higgs said he doesn't believe it's realistic for him to write down details of all the discussions he has with people.

"If I go back to the office now and I meet with a deputy minister in a certain department, I mean, we could talk about everything … that would be just daily routine," he said this week.

"But I'm not writing down every word they say or what they say."

When asked about duty to document, a spokesperson for the New Brunswick government said public employees have to "create and manage information about their organization's business and activities in accordance with the New Brunswick Archives Act and other applicable legislation."