National Defence Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

[Caroline Maynard]

It has an impact on simply the authority itself and on the credibility of the access request, because we're seeing longer delays. Now we're seeing departments either taking the orders to court or ignoring the orders, so they take extra time to respond to access requests that should have been responded to within 30 days or within an extension that is legal.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I have some historic ATIPs that were never completed. I have one that we filed back on October 13, 2017, just asking for a policy change document. We have one from back in 2018 just asking for information surrounding the national shipbuilding strategy, which you'd think would be pretty easy to come by. I have one looking for records on the hospitality expenses of an employee, and one looking for information on an Auditor General's report and the correspondence that went back. I have six that go back from 2017 to 2019.

Should I have filed these with you? As a member of Parliament, I don't know if I have the capability to come to you and say, “Make the department report.” For some of these, we've only started to hear back from the department in the last couple of months, and they still haven't given us the information.

[Caroline Maynard]

I was going to ask you if you have complaints with my office. I don't think you do.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Should I?

[Caroline Maynard]

Well, the process is there for that. There is a timeline in the act, and if you don't get an answer within 30 days or within an extension that is taken legally, you have the right to make a complaint within 60 days of knowing why you want to make this complaint. Yes, you have the right to complain to my office.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Is this because of the department or the minister? Are they incapable or incompetent? Is it a lack of leadership or a political scandal and cover-up?

[Caroline Maynard]

There are lots of factors that affect a department's ability to respond. As I said earlier, there is information management, the culture of the department, the lack of resources, lack of tools—all of these things. Often the leadership has an impact as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Bezan, four minutes is not five minutes.

What does TMC stand for?

[Allison Knight]

Trans Mountain Corporation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. We were wondering about that.

With that, Mr. Fisher, you have four minutes.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

This is not a Bezan four minutes.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I want to thank the two commissioners and their teams for being here.

It's funny. I had a prepared question, but I hear the frustration in your opening remarks and in your responses.

We heard a 2007 reference when it came to the budgets. We heard a 2011 reference. Ms. Maynard, you referenced 2011 and how bad things were.

We know historically how bad things were under the previous government, but my goodness, it doesn't seem like it's getting a lot better. I can look at graphs and charts that show me there are some minute improvements. This is really frustrating.

It's one thing for us to sit here and say the opposition years ago was really bad, or to sit over there and say, “You guys are really bad.” We as a committee, as a government, as ministers and as departments need to do better.

Can both of you tell me in the remaining time I have what we need to do, notwithstanding the IT system issue—which was well received, thank you—and the budget issue, to get this ATI system fixed? I know I'm not leaving you an awful lot of time. I'm frustrated and I hear your frustration, and I hear the frustration from members around the table. What do we need to do to get beyond what I see in charts as incremental improvements. We'll take two seconds to pat ourselves on the back for incremental improvements and then get back to work. What do we need to do to make this better?

[Caroline Maynard]

I agree with you that things don't change. When it's your information, you're protecting it, and when it's not your information, you want it.

If you want things to be changed, you need to change the culture within the government. The leaders have to provide priorities, clear objectives, resources, training and innovation.

We need legislative changes. Right now, we'll be waiting until 2025 to have another round of legislative changes. That's going to be just the start of the legislative changes. There are going to be consultations probably, and I'm not even sure I'm going to be there for that. However, we definitely need stronger legislation. That act is 40 years old and it hasn't changed that much.

We need investment in money and in resources to respond to the access requests. They are not going to go anywhere. People are asking for information. They know they have the right to do it and they are doing it.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Ms. Solloway, I think there's still a bit of time left.

[Harriet Solloway]

I'm not quite sure how to answer. To be very transparent, to my knowledge, I'm not sure that my predecessors have asked for a budget increase in previous years, so I cannot say that requests were denied. However, I do think we need some flexibility built into our budget to address sui generis situations, making sure we don't waste money but making sure that we have access to money when we need it.

I think that's one particular issue, but as I said, it's going to be up to us. This is what we're in the process of doing in looking at our organization, and we'll be ready, hopefully by the next budget cycle, to make a clear-eyed request about what is required.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much for that.

Thank you again to you both for your opening remarks and your comments.

I think it's incumbent upon us as a committee to stop the “they're worse than we are, we're worse than they are” partisan sniping and just get down to work and make this system better for you folks.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

You have a minute and a half, Ms. Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Maynard, two weeks ago, I quoted part of your 2020 report, which states that public servants tend not to disclose too much information so as not to risk getting into trouble, that they sometimes routinely classify information as confidential and that their work related to access to information requests is only one of a number of tasks.

I asked a witness about this, and he said that there wasn't really a problem there, that the work was well done and that these officials were assigned exclusively to access to information requests. I'd like to hear your point of view so that your testimony can also be part of our report.

[Caroline Maynard]

Access to information units do virtually nothing but this work all the time. There's no doubt that these people work hard and that working in an access to information unit is a calling. On the one hand, requesters aren't happy about not having the information they want and, on the other, departments don't want to give it out because they have other things to do.

The obligations under the act are part of the responsibilities of public servants, but I don't think they've been taught that. We have to show leadership and tell them that this is part of their department's priorities and that it isn't just a secondary task that can be ignored because it's not important or fun.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Normandin.

You have a minute and a half, Ms. Mathyssen, and maybe a couple more seconds.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you.

I don't want to put you in the middle, and I think Mr. Fisher has the best of intentions. He's certainly right that it shouldn't be partisan. It should be about getting access out there. However, when we talk about a change in culture or you talk about showing leadership and the need for investments and resources, I often wonder how much of this is deliberate since, for example, one group has power and the other one has information, and then the other one has power and they want information.

How much do you think we can do? What can we truly do within legislation to ensure that all that partisanship is taken out of the equation and ensure that the deliberate under-resourcing of institutions does not occur?

[Caroline Maynard]

As we said, with regard to agents of Parliament right now, there are only two or three who have independent mechanisms to obtain their own finances outside of the government. Unfortunately, we are one of, I think, six that don't have a mechanism for independent financing. That definitely would be the right step forward. Then we would be able to obtain resources when there's a surge of requests or a surge of complaints, and, when we have an IT system that fails, we would not have to use our own resources to fix things.

Changing the law, making it stronger, making it a priority, making proactive disclosure a priority and proactive disclosure being under my authority to investigate.... Right now, part 2 of the act is not even being looked at. We don't even know if institutions respect their proactive disclosure obligations because nobody has a purview, an authority, to review that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately.

Mr. Bezan, you have four minutes.