A few months ago, on a blog far away, I posted about questions surrounding Canadian government censorship of military events and actions in Afghanistan. That post focused on how the Canadian government monitors journalists who want access in Afghanistan.

Following the bombing deaths of four Canadian soldiers and CanWest journalist Michelle Lang, though, new questions of access to information and Canadian military censorship have come up.

Michael Yon, a former Green Beret turned journalist blogger covering Iraq and Afghanistan, posted on his blog today about how information about the incident is being supressed.

Yon responded to a request from a CanWest journalist looking for information about the events surrounding the bombing that killed the five Canadians. After providing the information, he received an email back from the same journalist:

“While the Canadian military confirmed to me much of the information you provided, they are trying to prevent us from publishing it, saying it would breach our agency's embedding agreement.”

This brings to the front important questions that we probably should be asking more often: to what degree are the Canadian military and government limiting access to information in Afghanistan, and why? As Yon points out, there seems to be no clear reason why the events leading up to these deaths would fall under national security.

With questions continuing to swirl about the torture of Afghan detainees, and following what has been called the bloodiest year yet in the occupation of Afghanistan, we have all the more reason to demand access to information about what is happening.

This should also send a wakeup call to CanWest and other Canadian news outlets about trading aspects of independence for access to military operations. After so many years, it would be surprising to see a sudden change in journalist-embeding in the country, but hopefully it teaches a lesson for future deals in the age of embeding.

Yon's post also does a great job breaking down differences in approach to the media between the US, Canadian and British army. You can read it at http://www.michaelyon-online.com/.