Evidence of meeting #113 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I'd like to finish before the end of this year.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Is that the end of the calendar year?
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
That's 2024, yes.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
That would mean that you would be able to report on it by that time.
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Okay.
Commissioner, thanks very much for your responses to my questions. I appreciate it.
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You're welcome.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Barrett.
Ms. Khalid, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Maynard, for being here today. It's much appreciated, all of your work and your tenure.
I appreciated your comments about making sure that your office functions effectively, and a lot of that has to do with funding as well. I note that in December 2023 the opposition voted against funding for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner as a whole and, as you've said, without—
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Please don't interrupt me. I don't interrupt you when you speak.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I don't want any disruptions here. Keep the comments down.
I accept your apology, Mr. Kurek.
Do you, Ms. Khalid?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
We are going to continue. I stopped your time. In fact, I'm going to give you the 25 seconds back.
You have six minutes. Go ahead.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
You said, “Without additional funding, I will no longer be able to carry out my mandate responsibly and ensure full respect of Canadians' rights of access to information.” Those are the words of the Information Commissioner when Harper was in power and Pierre Poilievre was the minister responsible for safeguarding our democracy.
Do you worry that receiving ample resources in the years forward, or not receiving them, is going to hurt how your office effectively functions?
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Having sufficient funding is always at the heart of my mandate, because I don't know how many complaints we're going to receive and I don't know how many investigations we'll have to do.
This is why I was asking for an independent funding mechanism, so that if it goes down, we can reduce the funding; if it goes up, we can ask for it through a mechanism that's faster than the current mechanism we have, so that it's providing us with sufficient funding.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I appreciate that.
As you're entering the final year of your mandate, what challenges do you see for your office going forward?
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You referred to the former commissioner, and what's interesting is that if you look at the testimony she gave in 2015-16, there aren't many differences between what we said back then and what we are saying now.
The act needs to be modernized. The government has to change the way it deals with access to information, and it has to be more proactive. It has to provide information, because the Access to Information Act is now not responding to the demand, so we have to do something.
We have to invest in our resources, and we have to manage the information better. Between the time I started in 2018 and now, it hasn't improved. I don't think it's going to improve in the future either if we don't change it.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I appreciate that.
How do new technologies play into the role of the office when we're talking specifically about artificial intelligence, digital technologies and privacy concerns? Do those play a role?
11:15 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
New technology for sure would help units respond to access requests more quickly, by removing duplication and going through documents faster. There are some institutions that are already using robots. They call them “bots”.
IRCC is using some of them. That's one example. IRCC has been trying to upgrade the portal through which it provides information. Without that, access requests will keep going up. Certainly we need to find tools to provide that information in a proactive way.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Do you collaborate with other departments, such as Shared Services, to develop those technologies, or do you do that separately, on your own, in your office?
11:20 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
That's within the authority of the Treasury Board Secretariat, because they are responsible for administering the act. I often provide some examples of solutions that could be explored.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Does your office have a plan for how to deal with these evolving technologies and for how we can provide services for access to information?
11:20 a.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No, we don't.
