Evidence of meeting #14 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
If we were able to implement some amendments that would actually draw from the open government act, you're recommending the duty to create records. Is the order in which you listed them pretty much the order of priority? Are you recommending a preamble or a purpose clause within the act?
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Newspaper Association
The open government act actually contains an expansion of the original expression of purpose in the original Access to Information Act, which says:
The purpose of this Act is to make government institutions fully accountable to the public, and to make the records under the control of those institutions fully accessible to the public, by extending the present laws....
All we intend to emphasize with this request is that it be clarified that the onus is on disclosure. The onus should be on openness, not on secrecy, and the burden of proof, as Ms. Kothawala was saying, should be on those who would seek to keep things secret. This is in that spirit.
To answer your other question, we don't have a hierarchy of priorities. We feel they're all equally important, and they're all equally doable. Not to say the outcome would be something less bad; in fact, the outcome would be something quite good if you were able to adopt some, if not all, of these measures.
Research Director, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
Our top two priorities would be, one, to give the commissioner order-making power, and second, to have all the crown corporations, foundations, quasi-governmental bodies covered under the act as soon as possible. If this amendment can be made to the Accountability Act, we would be happy.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
One of the most difficult clauses we will have to fight for, I think, is the cabinet confidences. If you could expand on this, is it your feeling that there should be a possible exemption for cabinet confidences, but not an automatic exclusion? Exemption rather than exclusion--would that satisfy your concerns? It would then be up to the Information Commissioner to rule whether this passes the injury test, etc.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Newspaper Association
Precisely. We would support that. We are not here to say that all the business of government ought to be done in full view of the public. We recognize there are some decisions that need to be made behind closed doors. We just think there ought to be somebody who can say whether there is a public interest override or not. It's not good enough for the government of the day to say, well, there are public interest reasons that we've kept that secret and it's just going to have to remain secret.
President, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
I would agree. Nothing should be automatic. It's not that they shouldn't get it, but it should be clear and public. It isn't automatic that you don't ask questions because it's not available.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Yes. It would be the Information Commissioner who would obviously make that adjudication.
Research Director, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
I believe an “injuries to harms test” could be added as well.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Yes, I note that is a mandatory public interest override and the injury test.
So to get us back to where we started, if we could manage to mitigate any possible damage that was identified by John Reid and then add those four or even five things, we'd have a pretty good bill. We'd have a dramatically improved access to information regime. Would you agree?
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Newspaper Association
You'd have a bill that was actually moving the ball forward. We could argue about how far, but it would move the ball forward.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Yes, and then we could mop up the other details, perhaps at the other committee, in the fullness of time. That would be great.
Thank you for your input.
President, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
It should be clear that many of the things that government does should have records. There shouldn't be things done and then in a request for what happened and how the decision was made, it's oh, we don't have anything on that.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
My question is for Mr. Rosenberg.
In your presentation, you stated that access to information is a matter of public interest and that public interest must always be put first. You seem pleased that all crown corporations are to be subject to Bill C-2. You also said that not only should they be subject to the legislation, but that there should be no exclusions. However, the intent of the exclusion contained in Bill C-2 is to protect journalists' sources.
Are you saying that journalists' sources and cabinet decisions should be accessible to the public? Are you saying that everything should be in the public domain, unless proven reasons for secrecy can be provided? That would mean that were one able to prove that something should be made public, it would be possible to obtain information on journalists' sources and cabinet decisions. Is that what you are hoping to achieve when you say that we must avoid a culture of secrecy and ensure that public interest is put first?
President, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
Making absolute statements is a problem. While I certainly am sympathetic to not putting the sources of newspapers in the public domain, that's not government; that's the operation of the free press. I have much more sympathy for the free press protecting its sources than for government claiming it can't tell for a variety of reasons.
Research Director, B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
I could add the model in Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain of the public broadcasters being under their FOI acts. It seems to work well, and if Mr. John Reid, the commissioner, would rule wisely on these issues to protect journalistic integrity....
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Newspaper Association
Journalistic sources must be protected. There is no question that this must be achieved.
Conservative
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Newspaper Association
Commissioner Reid suggested wording that would ensure such protection. He proposed the protection—
I could quote from his statement. He said that the head of the CBC would have the power not to disclose documents that are of a journalistic nature.
I think this is sufficient protection for most government departments. In fact, all government departments currently operate with this kind of protection. Why should the CBC be an exception? We are not for one second recommending that journalistic sources be subject to disclosure under this or any other act.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
On the issue of cabinet confidences, I would argue that it's actually impossible to mandate the inclusion of cabinet discussions as part of ATI, because if any cabinet of any party believes it cannot have a free flow of discussion that will not end up on the front page of a newspaper, it will merely hold meetings that it doesn't call cabinet meetings. There's absolutely nothing anyone can do to define a cabinet meeting differently, because they can say, oh, it's a dinner party or it's a discussion, or we're having a drink over at the local pub. There's any number of things that a group of people can do to change the definition of their reunion in order to avoid ATI at the cabinet level. All forcing ATIs on cabinet confidences would do is force cabinet ministers to do their work, to have frank discussions, in fora that are not accessible. So I would argue that not only is it not desirable, it's not practically possible to do it.
On the issue of draft audit reports, it should be noted again for the public to hear that the reason the government did not include them under ATI is because the Auditor General asked the government not to. She believed it would strengthen the audit function not to include them.
Finally, on order powers, the Information Commissioner has not asked for them, nor is he suggesting they would be desirable. As a result, we are listening to him and those are his views.
I wanted to make those comments and allow you to respond.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Newspaper Association
My reaction to cabinet confidences would be that we had actually achieved the right balance in the name of the open government act, which all political parties supported. There is a recognition that it's a fine balance, but that fine balance had been achieved in the way the open government act was drafted. I'm not sure why the position has changed so dramatically today.
With respect, in terms of the audit powers, I don't think that we can make all the decisions based on what the Auditor General may or may not want. When the theme of this whole act is supposed to be greater accountability in government, we can't have that without more transparency. More specifically, there's not going to be more openness when the excessive secrecy provisions trump those supposed expanded crown corporations that are now covered.
