Every client of the mental health system knows that at every appointment you attend with your health care team, whether it be doctors or therapists, notes are taken and stored in your file. After years of searching and bureaucracy, I finally got some of those notes back.

A recent global assessment of right to information (or access to information) laws placed Canada 55th out of the 93 countries with RTI laws. Despite this poor track record, Canadians have demonstrated little enthusiasm for the issue. If Canada were in 55th place on other human rights issues -- such as women's equality, freedom of expression, discrimination or privacy -- there is little doubt that Canadians would be outraged.

We live in an age when the stethoscope, one of modern medicine's oldest tools, and the microchip, the device powering the digital revolution, are now linked. It presents the most exciting healthcare breakthrough we have today.