Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 20th, 2011

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Drapeau.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

Good morning.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

As I listen to your responses to the questions from the other side, I appreciate that your intent is probably similar to the intent of both sides, and that is to get to the root of the problem and to fix it. It appears to me that with the CBC right now, we're living in a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do world, where, from my perspective and from everything I'm reading, they simply are thumbing their nose, not only at the Information Commissioner, who is appointed by this House, but also the courts of the land, which I find particularly obnoxious. I too, as you've stated, rely on the CBC for much of the news, and a lot of the information they provide is good information. So when I see that, it's a total conflict of values to my sense.

You've also addressed section 68.1. The CBC's treatment of that section is a blatant and ill-disguised exercise, which is probably an issue that is them again thumbing their nose at the laws as they exist and the rules as they're established. In Justice Boivin's summary...and we heard from the CRTC CEO, Mr. von Finckenstein, the other day talking about section 68.1 as being poorly drafted. It appears from what I'm hearing in your testimony that there are ways in which we can fix this.

Do you have some specific thoughts of how we can fix section 68.1 so that it applies fairly to everybody?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

First of all, it applies only to the CBC. I'm a great believer in traditions. We have a tradition of common law, and many of our legal systems come from the motherland.

Amazingly, in the U.K., in their freedom to information act they have also found it difficult on the simple reading of the act to say where the borders or frontiers are. The court has stepped in, including the high court itself, to define.... The way it works for the BBC, in annex A, which lists the institutions subject to the act, it says the BBC, except for journalism, art, and literature. That's what it says, which is pretty well the same as what we do. We came about it in a different fashion, but no more explanation. The court has defined what that is and defined where the balance lies.

I think we will need to wait for the Federal Court of Appeal, which has now reserved judgment on the hearing of October 18, to arrive precisely at a decision, if not on what journalism means then what the powers of the Information Commissioner are in response to a complaint. I'm looking forward to that.

I would suggest very strongly that we all wait until the Federal Court of Appeal, which has a considerable amount of experience in interpreting the access act, does so.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Specifically to the number of requests that you've made on the access issues, you said 50, 60, 80 per year, and my colleague has said it's as many as 800. What's your success rate in receiving responses on those requests?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

May I be honest?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Please.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I wouldn't earn a very good living if I had to depend upon what I receive. I have an equal number, almost, of complaints to the Office of the Information Commissioner. In reality, if I were to put on the table what it is that we actually receive, you'd be surprised. I don't think it would exceed the height of the glasses here.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

That is the information you're actually receiving back on your access requests to the CBC.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

Once I strip all the white pages and the redacted things, there's not very much—

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Not very much.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

—of substance, no.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

It was interesting, one of our witnesses the other day mentioned they had submitted six or eight requests, which they're going to give copies of to this committee, and one of them was for the name and address of the president of the company, to see whether a simple request would be responded to. To the best of my knowledge, even that didn't receive a response. So it's not about the difficulty of the information. Again, I think we're back to the fact that it just doesn't exist.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I made the point, you will recall, that it's not only section 68.1; we have dealt with myriads of other exemptions, exclusions, fees, and so on. As reasonable and patient as we can be, we can only form the opinion that the purpose behind this was to deny, and if not to deny, then certainly to delay, which has the same purpose. If we can't have it after four years, then what do we do?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

For my last question, when you received the information--and you received lots of information, some 1,562 pages on one response alone--and you sifted through the redacted pages, etc., distilled it down to something you could read in half a page, did you receive any explanation as to why that information was being sensitized?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

Yes, there was, sir. I think the covering letter said “exemption under”, and then there was a series: 19, which is personal information; 20, which is third-party information; 16 is security, and so on and so forth. There was the whole string of exemptions.

And of the 1,500-some pages, if memory serves, I think there were 37 pages that had some typewriting on it. In some cases it was “pages 600 to 900 redacted under section so and so”; that was the nature of it. There was nothing of any significance, except for the front page that defined the purpose of the 1,500 pages.

We paid considerable fees to obtain that, and we waited quite a long time. We put in a complaint, but because of the section 68.1 that is currently before the tribunals we are awaiting a decision from the court before the Information Commissioner can proceed in sifting through this document.

We've been four years waiting on that particular report, which was the audit report done by an external firm of a national reputation. The cost of it was in the 300 figures. It was a substantial expenditure of public funds, which we thought we should have, concerning a computer program called Vision. So far I think it has cost $60-some-odd million.

It's not as if we were trying to pester, as the suggestion might have been at the CBC. We had a legitimate need to know what happened, how that particular project was managed, where the lessons were learned, and so on and so forth. So far we haven't been informed of any of that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to our second round of questioning.

Mr. Boulerice, please, for five minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Welcome, Mr. Drapeau. I will ask my questions in French and will also ask you for some clarification.

Earlier, when Mr. Angus asked how many access to information requests you submitted on behalf of Quebecor, you said, if I understood correctly, that it was about 70. Afterwards, when Mr. Lamoureux asked about the requests you submitted to CBC/Radio-Canada, you talked about several hundred. Is that because you submitted several hundred requests that were not on Quebecor's behalf?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I think the two questions went together. We regularly submit ATI requests to CBC for a number of clients and institutions. However, the requests we send to CBC are not all on behalf of Quebecor. We have probably sent 50, 60 or 80 requests to CBC over the last few months and over the last year, on a regular basis. That was also done in previous years, especially once CBC became subject to the act.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

We are talking about 2007.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

I can tell you that many other organizations, such as VIA Rail, Canada Post and the National Arts Centre, and all others that became subject to the act as of September 1 received a pretty high number of requests from us pertaining to fairly similar information.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Okay.

Earlier, you talked about the fact that, when an organization receives public money and reaches into taxpayers' pockets, it has additional transparency obligations. That's an opinion we agree with. I think that you are right.

In the art, film and television world, there are no completely private areas. Denise Robert said so when she appeared on Tout le monde en parle the other day. She said that, without public funding, there would be no Canadian or Quebecker cinema. The situation is fairly similar when it comes to TV networks. Do you feel that the fact that private broadcasters—be it Sun Media, TVA or Global—use subsidies, tax credits and all the available programs to survive, provide programming, shoot and broadcast means that they have a similar obligation in terms of transparency? Do you think that they should have the same obligations as CBC, given the fact that they also receive generous public funding and the fact that, inevitably, CBC receives minimal funding of 35%—now, it is 39%—through the market?

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

If you are talking about public broadcasters, I have no expertise, knowledge or special training when it comes to that. I have none. So, I am unable to answer you.

If you're referring to the arts, I am not talking about public broadcasters. From memory, I can tell you that there are other organizations that receive significant funding from the federal government, such as the National Arts Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts, which are both also subject to the Access to Information Act. They also both have exemptions. For instance, when it comes to the National Arts Centre, you cannot receive documents or information that pertain to the payment given to a specific artist or to a donor who has anonymously given money to the National Arts Centre. They are exempted from releasing that type of information. However, they are both subject to the Access to Information Act, and there are others like them. As I already said, my area of expertise is not public broadcasting, so I cannot answer you.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Earlier, you said that you were very knowledgeable about access to information requests and that you had submitted several thousand of them.

[Col Michel W. Drapeau]

Yes.