Right to Know Week Essay Competition Conclusion

As part of the celebrations for Right to Know (RTK) Week 2011, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) launched the 2nd RTK Week Essay Competition, along with sponsoring organizations, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) and Cox & Palmer (C&P).

The purpose of RTK Week is to raise awareness about people’s right to access government information, while promoting freedom of information as essential to both democracy and good governance. The RTK Week Essay Competition helps further this purpose, particularly amongst secondary and post-secondary students.

Students were asked to write on the following topic:

“In the era of Wikileaks, where should the line be drawn for access to government records?”

The winning essay in this year’s competition was written by Amit Negandhi who received a prize valued at more than $500.00 and whose essay has been published on the OIPC website at www.oipc.nl.ca/pdf/1stPlace-RTK-Essay2011.pdf. 

Second place (prize valued at more than $200.00) was awarded to Gina Colbourne, and third place (prize valued at more than $100.00) went to Dave Jerome. All three are Memorial University students and were chosen anonymously by a panel of judges representing the organizations involved.

Prizes were presented to the winner (second and third place award winners not in attendance) on February 17, 2012, at OIPC by representatives of all sponsoring organizations, including: Information and Privacy Commissioner Ed Ring; Anna Cook, Mandy Woodland and Alex Templeton of Cox & Palmer; Montgomery Keough of Memorial University; and Donna Eldridge of the College of the North Atlantic. Photographs of the prize presentation have also been published on the OIPC website at www.oipc.nl.ca/events.htm. 

The interest in this year’s competition was high, as was the quality of submissions. The OIPC, MUN, CNA, and Cox & Palmer would like to extend congratulations to the winning essay writers as well as all who participated in this year’s competition, and look forward to the 3rd RTK Week Essay Competition launching in September 2012.

For full contest details and restrictions, please see the OIPC website at www.oipc.nl.ca. 

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Media contact:
Ed Ring
Information and Privacy Commissioner
709-729-6309

2012 03 06                             11:50 a.m.