My name is David McKie. I'm a journalist with the award-winning investigative unit for CBC News. I'm here to speak for myself and by extension other journalists who use the federal Access to Information Act to help, I think, tell stories of public importance.
I'm also here as an educator, someone who teaches journalism students at Carleton University and elsewhere how to use the act, and as someone who has written about the act and ways to use it in a recently published book called Digging Deeper. I am not—I repeat, not—here as a representative of the CBC. That might disappoint some of you.
For the past several years I've been part of a team of journalists who have used this act to uncover important facts. To name a few, there's the fact that a clinical trial at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in which a little boy died was never sanctioned by Health Canada—Anne MacLellan was the health minister at the time—or the fact that Health Canada's own adverse drug reaction database showed that the number of children being harmed by prescription drugs had tripled since 1997, and without the department's knowledge; the fact that about a third of this country's seniors are on prescription drugs they are not supposed to be on, either because those drugs are dangerous or because there are safer alternatives, and many of those seniors become statistics in Health Canada's adverse drug reaction database, which is now online.
These stories and many more we've told would not be possible without the Access to Information Act. Even at that, we have to fight hard to get the material we did in the cases I've just mentioned. It took years to obtain Health Canada's adverse drug reaction database. In the case of the clinical trials, it took us two attempts to obtain the proper documentation.
If we step back to take a broader look at this act's application, we need look no further than stories such as the infamous “Shawinigate” affair and the trouble former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien found himself in. And of course, we all know about the ad scandal, one of the reasons for our present political configuration and one of the key reasons we're all sitting in this room talking about the need for more accountability.
I should also point out that it's not only journalists who have managed to use this act. Dare I say, politicians too have used it to great effect. All parties have managed to ferret out information to in some cases embarrass the government and more importantly to outline shortcomings in public policy.
My colleague Ken Rubin has already explained some of his concerns, and I share them; we talked about them before this presentation. What troubles me even more is that the flow of information to which we have the legal right is in some cases slowing to a trickle.
Just yesterday I filed two more complaints with the information commissioner's office, one against the Department of National Defence for fees ranging in the thousands of dollars, and a second against Foreign Affairs and International Trade for denying me a document—David Emerson's mandate letter—that I think should be a matter of public record; why not? We are also locked in another battle with Health Canada over its adverse drug reaction database, and that battle may end up in federal court, costing everyone involved far too much time and money.
Last month I edited a story in the Canadian journalists' association Media Magazine from a former master's student out at the journalism school at U.B.C, who recounted the frustrations and threats—yes, threats—she endured while trying to extract information from Transport Canada on the exemptions they were employing to deny journalists information after the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. I have a copy of that article, if anyone's interested in reading it, and I suggest you do, because it's disturbing.
So we face a lot of obstacles without having to endure new ones. My concern is that in many instances departments are not respecting the spirit of the act; instead, officials choose to take narrow interpretations and apply liberal exemptions, such as advice to the minister or security concerns, to keep information secret. This means that in many instances it's becoming increasingly difficult for us to do stories such as on safety at airports, problems certain segments of the population may be having with prescription drugs, or policies our correctional services are using to deal with dangerous offenders—an issue this government is concerned about. These stories are not being told, and they should be.
So I applaud the initiatives that would bring crown corporations and foundations into the act's sphere, including mine.
I think the spirit behind the legislation, one that promotes openness and accountability, is one that should also be applauded. I would just urge you to watch the loopholes, the vague language, the addition of exemptions, and other potential obstacles that could become roadblocks. Ken has talked about them.
I would also urge you to argue for more funding--and this is important--more funding, so departments can adequately staff their ATIP offices. Too frequently, I deal with harried bureaucrats crumbling under the weight of requests. This results in lengthy delays. You can implement all the reforms you want, but if ATIP offices are understaffed, the information that needs to get out becomes stuck in the proverbial bottleneck. Information delayed is information denied.
Finally, I would ask you to act with some haste. I don't know how many stories I've done about efforts to study the act. Study, study, study, talk, talk, talk, and yet all that study has led to too few meaningful reforms for an act due for a shake-up. So you have a chance to make a difference, to correct what one former prime minister called the democratic deficit. An increasing number of countries are adopting their own access laws; Canada can and should be a model for openness and accountability.
Thank you.