One would think that the public should have access to information about the financial dealings of public universities. But B.C.’s three leading public universities say otherwise and are arguing that access to such records fall outside democratic interests and that the transparency principle of government does not apply when universities are acting as “service providers to a private company.”
The Georgia Straight reports that the province’s three largest universities have argued that the public should not have access to financial dealings of their spinoff companies. According to documents filed with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in a case involving Simon Fraser University, both UBC and the University of Victoria have justified this position, in part, with the claim that universities act as “service providers” to private-sector organizations.
The dispute centres around a freedom-of-information request to SFU, which was filed by David Noble, a professor at York University. Noble, a critic of the corporate influence on universities, sought information in February 2004 from SFU’s University/Industry Liaison Office on companies spun off from SFU research.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers has intervened on Noble’s side, claiming that SFU should not be allowed to use it’s wholly owned company to deny public access to documents involving licensing deals.
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