Information & Ethics Committee on April 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Order. This is meeting number five of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our orders of the day are committee business. There are two items before us.

Based on the steering committee report and the acceptance of the full committee, we had scheduled that we would discuss the project of proactive disclosure under access to information, and as you know, we also have a motion from Mr. Easter that we will also consider at this meeting.

We are not in camera right now, and I'm open, but I can tell you we should all be aware that when our researchers work for us and present us with very excellent comprehensive documents to assist us in understanding the work we are proposing to do, they are not to be treated as witnesses. They cannot give opinions, etc. If you want to have those kinds of discussions, we must go in camera, because in their role they cannot be guiding the committee and suggesting various things. They will certainly take our requests for additional information, etc., so please keep that in mind as we move through this.

You have received two documents from them. One was “Recent Developments in Pro-Active Disclosure-Canada”, and a second, “Recent Developments in Pro-Active Disclosure--the United States and Other Countries”.

Having had an opportunity to review these, I think all the members will agree there's no question, this is the way governance is going. It's apparent we have activity in that regard in Canada, and certainly there are other countries that are ahead of us, but it is a very complicated area. There are a lot of dimensions, there are a lot of pieces to it, so I think at this point I would like to entertain from members their thoughts on the scope. We're trying to figure out where we go next. Let's put some parameters around the scope of the work we're doing, the kinds of witnesses members would like to see, the issues we would like to address. We certainly would like to consider what kind of interaction we would have with other jurisdictions, whether it be travel, conference, teleconferencing, or having witnesses come here. These are the kinds of things we should get members' input on so we start to define an approach for stage one, say, of our consideration of this subject matter. During the break week, our researchers can put some flesh to those bones and come back to us with the kinds of things we may be able to do, and assist in the scheduling based on availability or time required to put certain things in place.

So why don't we start with some members' input. We'll start with Madame Freeman, s'il vous plaît.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would first like to commend our analysts, Dara and Alysia, for their wonderful work. They prepared for us very relevant and comprehensive documents on the issue of proactive disclosure in different Canadian provinces and cities as well as in different countries. This has helped us to get a better idea of what is happening elsewhere. After reading their material, which was quite relevant, I would like to suggest that we proceed as follows.

For starters, perhaps the committee could look at some concrete examples of what is done here, that is in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. We have some examples of what is being done in this area in Quebec. I suggest that we meet with Mr. Jacques Saint-Laurent, the Chair of the Commission d'accès à l'information. He could talk to us about the procedures that have been put in place, the problems that they have encountered, the challenges that they have faced and the adjustments that they have had to make. In short, he could talk to us about the whole process of introducing proactive disclosure in the 15 areas identified.

That said, I also think we need to look at Toronto and Vancouver. We could invite people who have done this type of work in these cities to come here and talk to us about proactive disclosure at the municipal level. Proactive disclosure is commonplace and is done directly. They could give us an idea of how things are done elsewhere in the country.

I also think that we should meet with Ms. Corinne Charette and with Mr. Peter Bruce of the Treasury Board Secretariat, along with Mr. Jacques Saint-Laurent, the Chair of the Commission d'accès à l'information, and with an expert who is now in Toronto, Mr. David Eaves. Mr. Eaves helped to develop the procedure now followed in Vancouver and—and this is something the researchers would need to verify—I believe he worked on the approach now used in Australia. He has worked in both Canada and Australia and is now based in Toronto.

I would also add to the suggested witness list Mr. David Wallace, Toronto's Chief Information Office. We could invite him to appear before the committee, along with another important resource person, Mr. Mark Vale, Ontario's Privacy Officer. It would be just as quick if I were to give you my list of suggested witnesses.

Other possible witnesses include a CIO in Toronto and a CIO in the United States. If the committee was prepared to travel to the United States, it could meet with Mr. Vivek Kundra, the Federal Chief Information Officer, to discuss how things were done there. They are the persons best qualified to report on how things are done elsewhere.

I also understand that the Lac Carling Congress is scheduled to meet this year. The congress brings together information workers from all three levels of government, that is municipal, provincial and federal. The most important item on this year's agenda is the use of new technologies for public information purposes. I think we need to take a look at the work of the congress and at the outcomes of their session, since participants are experts on access to information issues at all three levels of government, namely municipal, provincial and federal. They are genuine experts and at this session, they will be looking at ways of making information accessible.

I have several more suggestions. I could give you my list and add a few more names to it, but I think I have all the information on these persons and on the work they have done, in Australia as well as in the United States.

These meetings and discussions will truly give us an opportunity to see how access to information can be facilitated so that Canada can be an open and transparent democracy that is accessible to all citizens.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Madame, I want to compliment you on your careful consideration of the project. I think it would be very helpful to our researchers if we could get a copy of your list, if you have it, just to be absolutely sure of the names and the institutions or organizations they represent.

As we hear from others, we won't want to duplicate experts telling us the same thing, but we certainly want to know. Because of the availability of people, and so on, it's good to have a comprehensive list right now and we'll sort out the logistics of people and issues.

So thank you very much.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Thank you for complimenting me on my work, Mr. Szabo. Easter is just around the corner and you must be in a good mood. Thank you.

[Some voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That's very kind of you, Madam. Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up on what Madame Freeman was talking about in regard to what they are doing in Quebec.

I noted in the research that there is a province-wide regulation on proactive disclosure that came into force, I think it was in November of last year. So I think it would be useful for us to bring in some experts from municipalities to share that information and to communicate what their experience has been to date.

I wonder what the committee thinks about comparing pieces of legislation from different provinces and how it might benefit us, because we're federal and they're provincial, and what the differences might be that we need to pay attention to when doing that comparison.

Those are my thoughts on where we should go with this, and I appreciate Madame Freeman's comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

That's very good. I certainly think the legislative question is going to be really important to look at, because we don't want to be led down a line that's not going to allow the fed to respond. But I think the principles with regard to open government and freedom of information are fairly consistent regardless of the jurisdiction. So as we go through this process, those kinds of things are coming up, but it's an excellent point that we should always keep in mind what's possible from a legislative perspective.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with Ms. Freeman's points and some of the witnesses she proposed. This is an extremely comprehensive issue.

It is interesting going through the documentation. I think the Library of Parliament today did a very good job. It is interesting especially when you look at New Zealand, which seems to me at first blush to break down into finer points such as agriculture, building, housing, construction, education, etc.

So I do think we would need a witness from that area. But also it would be useful in that, much as Ms. Block said, I think there is a difference between the federal level and provincial level in terms of where we might end up and how it might operate, because you are operating across jurisdictions. Sometimes joint agreements may even affect what you can release and what you can't.

I think it would be useful to really look closely at the U.S. system as well. We know under their system, on their stimulus program, they do release a lot more. When you go on their website, you can find out about jobs were created and projects, etc., which we're at least not able to do yet in Canada, and that seems to be a reasonable concept.

So I think it might be useful for the committee to travel, to look at least at their system. It's not that far for us to go, and I think it might be useful, rather than just having witnesses to look at the U.S. system in a somewhat comprehensive way. It's under a different system, I know, but you're dealing with agreements between the federal government and states, which would be...I wouldn't say exactly similar to, but something like our system.

Those are basically my comments. I agree that we have to move ahead fairly aggressively on this issue and find the witnesses and the programs that could give us some indication of how we should be moving forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mrs. Davidson, please.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to echo the comments made thus far. I think they've all been good, and I want to thank Ms. Freeman for all the work she did. I must say she came prepared.

I think we have a tremendous amount of good information here from the different areas. I thank the analysts for providing us with that. It certainly was good reading, and provocative. It certainly brought up a lot of questions.

I think it'll be critical that we develop a fairly rigid, for lack of a better word, work plan so we can outline what parameters we want to study. There are a lot of different things in this information. We go from municipal to provincial to federal governments. I think the point Ms. Block made about the jurisdictions and the legislative powers, and so on, is going to be critical in where we go. Hopefully we're going to set up a work plan, so that we will be a little bit structured in the direction we're taking.

I think we'll find a lot of value in other studies. I agree we probably should try to visit a couple of these places, and for those we can't, make sure we have delegations in. In some cases, we may have to do a video conference or something. I think there would be some interesting points to learn from all of them.

The other thing I note in the information we got is that some very limited things are already being done by the federal government here. I think we need to pursue that, but we need to make sure we're all clear on what is happening and how that might be working or not working.

I think it's important that we recognize that some things are being done here already, although they're limited. So we need to incorporate that into it as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Siksay, please.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank the analysts for their reports, which were very helpful, and Madam Freeman for her approaching exhaustive list. That was impressive as well.

I don't have specific proposals, but I think there are things mentioned in the reports the analysts did that merit our attention, and what people said who are specifically attached to those pieces of work.

I think the Australian report and the direction of the Australian government is important, partly for what's noted in the footnote, that Australia has similar copyright laws and a similar copyright framework to Canada. The Information Commissioner mentioned that the other day when she was here as well. We should look at the work the Australians are doing there, the task force report, and the survey that compared Australia to other countries. Maybe if they did a comparison with Canada, that might be instructive to us as well. So I do think that looking at Australia is important.

I'm glad that Madam Freeman talked about the U.S. officials we would visit. I would add the non-governmental organization, OMB Watch—it's mentioned in the report—for their critical look at what's happening in the United States. Apparently there's good stuff happening there, but they also have a critique of that, which I think would be important for us to hear about.

The U.K. action plan that has come from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury also merits attention as a work in progress kind of thing. The report talked about the specific role of the Information Commissioner equivalent in Mexico, who actually runs the whole system for proactive disclosure, which I think is an interesting model. Certainly rather than having individual departments or agencies doing the work, they centralize it. It would be interesting to know how that's functioning and whether that's proving to be an important way to proceed. So I think someone from the commissioner's office in Mexico would be important to hear from.

I also note that the Australian government report talked about consulting with the World Wide Web Consortium on accessibility, to ensure that people with disabilities have access to information provided through proactive disclosure. That's a very specific piece, but it might be helpful to have someone from that consortium present it to us.

Mr. Rickford distributed the letter from Google and Jacob Glick on their interest in open government, open data. I think it would be important to hear from an organization like Google to see how they fit into all of this.

It generally strikes me that there's the sort of policy side dealing with the scope, intent, and goals of proactive disclosure, which I think are really important. We should get clarity on how that would apply to Canada. Maybe we need to hear from Treasury Board again about what they're currently doing around that.

I think there's also the technological side: what technology makes available, what is and isn't possible with the technology, and where technology is going in the future. We need to have some specific representations around technology. I don't know who would do that, but I think that would be an important aspect of what we need to look at.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Very good.

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, like my colleagues, I too would like to thank our researchers for putting together a comprehensive, relevant and important information package to get us started. Thank you very much.

My associates have also examined the approaches taken by various governments. Everyone seems to have found case studies and analyses that will enable us to carry out a fairly exhaustive study of proactive disclosure.

I don't want to repeat some of the discussion that's taken place, and I appreciate it very much.

At the last meeting I highlighted a couple of observations I had made about a preliminary, and indeed cursory, review of the information at the time. I was struck, in looking at all the countries, that they appeared to be at different stages--that might be one way of framing it--but that they may have taken different approaches. Indeed, in the United States we saw guidelines. For the purposes of this discussion, they had four components that dealt with publishing information, including creating a culture of openness, improving data quality, and updating policies to allow greater openness. To that extent, I share the thoughts of my colleague, Mr. Easter, on the value of looking at the United States. That may be more where we're at.

Having said that, there have been some comments made here today about hearing from witnesses from other parts of the world or perhaps from folks here who have expertise on other countries. I noted that in Mexico there is a legislated positive duty of proactive disclosure. There was a report and a subsequent action plan in the United Kingdom. Perhaps, anecdotally, if the United Kingdom carries out their action plan like our government does, we would know that there's a firm commitment to get things done and indeed to deliver. That would be something to look at.

Australia has some great reforms, and there was some implementation in New Zealand that we may benefit from hearing about. And of course there is a proactive system of disclosure in Finland.

Those are some things to consider when we're talking about where we're at, and in terms of a possible visit somewhere, from whom and where we might benefit the most. For the purposes of the discussion, I would think that we're more in line with the United States, which has sort of a guidelines approach.

Having said that, I have just a couple of comments. The document called “Recent Developments in Proactive Disclosure--Canada” points out that in April 2010, the Chief Information and Privacy Officer of Ontario is co-hosting a conference, with the City of Toronto and several other groups, called Managing Information in the Public Sector: Shaping the New Information Space. We've confirmed that it is on April 26 and 27. That might be something for us to think about.

I think that would be the extent of my contributions today, at least at this point in the discussion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Early bird registration is $334 per person. I noticed it as well. Again, it's another source of information, and we may want to consider sending someone. I don't think we all have to go, because I don't think there'll be much participation from the people who are attending. It would be more for education. But that's a very good point. Thank you for picking that up.

We'll go to Madame Freeman again.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Obviously, it's clear that we want to study how things are done here. However, we can also travel, as Ms. Davidson was suggesting. There are, after all, limits on the amount of information that we can glean from documents or from other sources.

It would truly be of some benefit to us to travel to the United States or to another country to see how things are done there and to gain a better understanding of procedures and their ramifications, in addition to hearing testimony and consulting written material. Therefore, I concur with Ms. Davidson's recommendation.

New Zealand is a lovely country, Mr. Szabo, or so Bill has told me.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

There will be no motions to go to New Zealand at this time. Thank you. That is out of order.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

It was a suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay.

Are there any more? Do we have a sense from the committee?

Mr. Poilievre, do you want to...?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Yes. On the proactive disclosure and the American experience, I want to make sure that we hear from the people who have also been critical of the way that principle has been implemented in Washington. There are detractors amongst the access to information community who point out their view that there is a gap between the rhetorical and the practical importance of the announcement of proactive disclosure in the American capital.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you. We have to hear both sides of the story and everything in between.

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, on Mr. Poilievre's point, could we ask the analysts if they came across any of that critical commentary? I don't see it in the report, but I wonder if that is out there. It's not something that I'm aware of. I'm wondering if there was something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I agree. There isn't anything available for us right now, the reason being that in some of the jurisdictions, things are so new that a lot of the points have not been fully identified and commented upon. In those international jurisdictions where they've had extensive experience and I'm sure some feedback, none of their documents are in either official language, so it's been a little difficult to encapsulate that information. We certainly will have to keep that in mind, because we obviously have to draw on the experience of other jurisdictions to the greatest extent possible. It will help us to do our work.

I suggest that we not do any travelling anywhere to talk to anybody about this until we can talk intelligently about the issues. A learning process has to go on, and I think we need to hear from the Access to Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner, and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to assist us and give us dimensions of the concerns there.

We certainly want to hear from Treasury Board. We had some work on documents management; some areas in some departments within the Government of Canada are already doing work on this. I think we should be aware of their thinking and link ourselves to them. We don't want to duplicate any work that's going on. I think we can educate ourselves there.

I was personally very impressed with the work done by the Quebec government on this issue. I think that is one we would certainly want to hear from.

Madame Freeman has given us a range of possible witnesses. I'd like to ask the researchers if they could prepare that full list and provide some preliminary information by finding out a little bit of background on the people, such as what their disciplines are, how they would group, and the areas they would fit into. Then at some point we will make contact to find out whether they would be available and then work out the timeframe, etc. This takes some work, and it's something they can be doing in the background.

One of the notes I made.... Well, there are many notes; I am a little concerned that we could very easily get buried in this project. I think we have to assume that we are starting from scratch. To me, the documents represented a significant body of work that's already been done on the subject matter, and a lot of progress in jurisdictions.

I think it's really important for us not to be too aggressive on the deliverable we're after. I don't think we've identified the deliverable. If we are going to do a report to Parliament on this first phase, what will that report try to say? I think we haven't defined that.

I certainly think one of the things we should consider in our discussions is whether we're trying to address a problem or whether we are trying to get involved in moving Canada further down the road of proactive disclosure and open government.

I think one of the reasons we identified the project in the first place was that the access to information system has problems. The bottlenecks are there. The timeliness of response isn't there. I think we have to answer this: is there anything we could do that would help to address that problem, and is proactive disclosure one of the tools we could use? I hope we're going to be able to answer that question.

Maybe we should think about that a little more, but I think I would like to hear from the Access to Information Commissioner. I think there was one...was it Citizenship and Immigration that represented a very large percentage of the requests?

If there was a system in place for information related to citizenship and immigration matters, would it significantly reduce the workload? Keeping in mind that not everyone is computer literate and we're going to have to continue to operate within the existing system, where are the efficiencies and what are we going to be able to deliver? I hope we can keep that in mind. I don't think we have defined the objective yet.

I think we can start very quickly in terms of educating ourselves and hearing internally as well as from the Information Commissioner, Treasury Board, and others. I think we should then proceed to find a timeframe in which they would be available. I think the first one we have is the Information Commissioner. The other two commissioners have been invited to give us ideas and concerns from their perspective and to help us with the dimensions. We're going to be doing that.

All right. I've said enough. I want to go back.

We have Madame Freeman.