Finding the right person in government just got harder

Image: PRESS qathett canoe route

Last week, the B.C. government removed public access to its employee directory, a tool that, for years, allowed British Columbians to identify and contact the public servants working on issues affecting their communities.

For outdoor recreation organizations, that may sound like a small administrative change. It isn’t.

ORCBC and our members regularly work with recreation officers, planners, regional staff and other public servants on trails, recreation sites, access roads, parks, land-use planning, authorizations and stewardship. Being able to figure out who is responsible for a particular issue and contact that person directly can make the difference between resolving something locally and spending weeks trying to find the right door into government.

That is why ORCBC wrote to the Minister of Citizens’ Services, Diana Gibson, before the directory was taken offline, asking the Province to reconsider the decision or provide an equally useful alternative. We recognize that cybersecurity threats are real and that government has a responsibility to protect its employees and systems. But accessibility and security should not have to be competing objectives.

A particular challenge for volunteer organizations

Many outdoor recreation organizations in B.C. are run largely or entirely by volunteers. They do not have government-relations staff or established networks of contacts. Often, they are simply trying to reach someone about a washed-out access road, a trail authorization, a recreation site, a proposed land-use change or another very local issue.

The former directory gave them somewhere to start.

As ORCBC Community Engagement Lead Ryan Stuart told CBC News, it was valuable to be able to find an actual person and ask, essentially, Are you the right person to talk to? Without that option, organizations may instead find themselves sending messages to general government inboxes without knowing who will receive them or when they will get a response. Stuart described that experience as feeling like a “black hole.”

That concern goes well beyond outdoor recreation. Canadian HR Reporter reported this week that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has also criticized the change. CFIB’s Ryan Mitton argued that removing direct contact information disadvantages people and smaller organizations that do not already know their way around government. Larger organizations may have lobbyists or existing relationships; everyone else has to figure out the system from the outside.

That is an important point. Public access to government should not depend on how well connected you are.

Security matters. So does transparency.

The Province says the directory was being exploited by cyber threat actors and that artificial intelligence has made it easier to harvest public information and create targeted phishing and other attacks. The RCMP has also identified security vulnerabilities associated with publicly available employee information. Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

But removing almost all individual employee information creates another problem: it makes government less transparent and harder for the public to navigate.

B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey has called the removal a “very serious transparency issue” and emphasized that public bodies are accountable to the people they serve. He has urged government to find a solution that balances security with openness rather than treating the two as mutually exclusive.

The Province has said it intends to publish an updated directory containing contact information for senior executives, while directing other inquiries toward general ministry and service contacts.

That is a start, but it does not replace what many community organizations need.

Most recreation groups are not trying to contact an assistant deputy minister. They are trying to identify the regional recreation officer, land-use planner or other staff member who actually works on the issue in front of them.

We need a workable alternative

ORCBC supports reasonable safeguards around government systems and employee information. At the same time, basic professional information - an employee's name, role, organizational unit and government contact information - serves an important public purpose.

There are many ways the Province could address legitimate security concerns without leaving the public to navigate a maze of generic inboxes. That could include limiting what information is displayed, introducing safeguards around access, or developing ministry and regional directories that allow people to identify the staff responsible for particular files.

For outdoor recreation, even a well-designed public directory showing regional teams, staff roles and appropriate points of contact would be a significant improvement over generic ministry contact pages.

Whatever solution is chosen, the principle is straightforward: British Columbians should be able to determine who in their government is responsible for the issues that affect them and how to reach them.

As we told Minister Gibson, an accessible public service depends, in part, on the public being able to find the people who serve them.