About Secret Canada

Secret Canada is a multi-faceted investigation of Canada’s many freedom of information systems from The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. This project serves three purposes: It’s a repository for data on hundreds of thousands of FOI request summaries filed across the country, a detailed guide on how to file requests, navigate the system and appeal decisions, and a source of freedom of information news. The data was painstakingly collected through hundreds of individual FOI requests to every major public institution at the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal level. Our investigative journalism on this topic can be read on The Globe and Mail’s website.

Freedom of information is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. Canada, once an international leader on access issues, is now a laggard. The country’s access woes are a problem for journalists, researchers, academics, activists and citizens, all of whom use FOI laws to learn about how their governments and public institutions function. Instead of simply complaining about the system, in the fall of 2021, two reporters from The Globe and Mail’s investigative team decided to take on Canada’s broken freedom of information system. This website is the result of that work.

Who we are

The Secret Canada team is comprised of reporters, developers, designers and editors. You can contact the team using the form on this page or by reaching out to the reporters directly at the e-mail addresses below.

Reporters

Tom Cardoso (tcardoso@globeandmail.com)

Robyn Doolittle (rdoolittle@globeandmail.com)

Data, website and design

Andrew Louis

Carys Mills

Andrew Saikali

Mahima Singh

Yang Sun

Ming Wong

Illustrations

Romain Lasser

Murat Yükselir

Editing

Renata D’Aliesio

Steve Kupferman

Greg McArthur

Danielle Webb

Additional credits

Deborah Baic

Dakshana Bascaramurty

Ibnul Chowdhury

Patrick Dell

Solene Dupont

Samantha Edwards

Tavia Grant

Tu Thanh Ha

Jimmy Huang

Greg Mercer

Minh Nguyen

Jessie Willms

Special thanks

Christine Brousseau

Phillip Crawley

Matt Frehner

Sinclair Stewart

David Walmsley