Good morning, Mr. Chair.
I am here this morning with Nancy Bélanger. She is the general counsel at the Office of the Information Commissioner.
Mr. Chair, my remarks will be very brief this morning.
I really welcome the opportunity to provide my views to the committee on the motion to increase the transparency and accountability of the House of Commons. I will limit my comments this morning to whether there should be modifications to existing laws to ensure greater transparency and accountability. You will not be surprised to hear that I am advocating this morning in favour of extending the coverage of the Access to Information Act to the administration of Parliament.
Access to information legislation gives citizens a legal framework to seek and get answers about how the institutions that govern them spend their tax dollars. The legislation also sets out the limitations to that right—as it is not an absolute right—and the independent review of disclosure decisions.
In my view, the only way to ensure transparency, accountability and effective oversight is for parliamentary institutions to be covered by the Access to Information Act.
Both the Standing Committee on Justice, in 1986-87, and the Access to Information Review Task Force, in 2002, made similar recommendations.
Internationally, the UK Freedom of Information legislation applies to the administration of Parliament but it exempts records if their disclosure would infringe the privileges of Parliament. Discussions with my colleagues at the Information Commissioner's Office of Great Britain led me to believe that these provisions are working fairly well. It is my understanding that that is what the committee was told by IPSA during its review. Obviously, IPSA is subject to Britain's access to information legislation.
During the hearings thus far, there has been a lot of discussion on proactive disclosure and whether or not the new rules set out by the Board of Internal Economy are sufficient.
In my view, proactive disclosure of expenses is a necessary step to making detailed information available to the public. Consistent proactive disclosure across the board for all institutions of Parliament can be done in a detailed way, in an open, accessible, and reusable format, on a regular cycle, and in a timeframe that preserves the relevance of the information.
So proactive disclosure is a good thing, and the more of it, the better. However, it isn't enough. In order to promote public trust in public institutions, there is a need not only to increase the availability and the quality of information but also to ensure access to that information. Citizens want to be able to validate the information that is provided to them or to obtain more details about an issue of interest, or simply know that the right is there for them to exercise when needed, which allows them, really, to determine the legitimacy of the spending and not just its legality.
In my view, bringing Parliament under the Access to Information Act, with appropriate safeguards, would guarantee that right of Canadians.
Thank you.