Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 16th, 2006

[Ken Rubin]

Yes, and as MPs, you handle constituency concerns and so you know how delicate and sensitive these things can be. You've been in this particular boat too.

So I think an amendment to the Privacy Act, on which third parties have access to personal information, is more in line than one to the Access to Information Act. Better privacy protection used in disclosure codes, subject to an independent review, is needed. Right now there isn't sufficient protection—and that would help.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's useful, but I want to know how and when did we get so off track? How did we get derailed from when the act was first established in 1983 or 1982? When did we start losing this expectation of privacy that I think is so key and integral?

[David Gollob]

Could I add something to Ken's remarks? The previous witnesses have also spoken about the fact that in some cases the identity of an individual can be deduced by officials within a department when it is a media person or a journalist who has made the request, because if I remember correctly--I'm not quoting verbatim--so-and-so has been writing stories about such-and-such, and here we have an access request from an individual about this topic; it's a journalist; it must be Fred. I don't know exactly the number of journalists in this country, but there are not thousands and thousands of journalists making access to information requests; there is a limited number of journalists, in fact. It's a small pool, so the moment you do identify that this is a request from a journalist, then the chances of someone's being able to guess rightly that it's Jim Bronskill, because he's been writing about CIA planes, are very high.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So even without using the name, but just that information of--

[David Gollob]

That's why it is injurious to be categorizing requests as media requests and to be subjecting them to special treatment, which is the subject of our complaint, as I mentioned earlier.

[Col Michel Drapeau]

Mr. Martin, you asked when it started. I think it started right at the very beginning. Both of them were enacted at the same time, back on July 1, 1983--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Which both, sir?

[Col Michel Drapeau]

The Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act, and I've done extensive research of all the House of Commons debates that took place 10 years earlier, leading up to it. When the acts were enacted and the two commissioners were appointed, Dr. Grace as Privacy Commissioner and Mrs. Hansen as the Information Commissioner, there was no public education program, no system of any sort to give direction to the bureaucrats that this was a right like any other, and they would be held to a standard, and there would be penalties--not in the act, but in policies; you would expect that to be done. There were no expectations, and there was also no change in values. The processing of these records has now been transferred from the bureaucracy to the public as a concept.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Colonel Drapeau.

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Stanton is next.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I get to my question, on Mr. Martin's point about the questions that were put.... Let me come back to that thought in a second.

I'll go to my question first to Mr. Rubin. Mr. Rubin, we heard some sensational testimonies and allegations around inside tracking systems and motives being challenged on numerous requests, I assume, in your testimony. On the systems themselves, I think it's reasonable to suggest that every department has to have some way of tracking inquiries and data and categorizing these types of inquiries for purposes of efficiency. What are you really alluding to here? What point are you trying to say, and what proof would you have to suggest that somehow these tracking systems, as you call them, are somehow not what they should be?

[Ken Rubin]

That's what the insiders call them too--tracking systems--and I did give documentation. I'm not making allegations; I have documentation from the very government that's doing it.

There is another example, before I forget. Besides the Reform Party's being specially targeted, the Bloc Québécois, during Meech Lake and when they put in requests at the sponsorship scandal, was also targeted. So the system gets warped depending on the issue and the nature of the flavour of the day.

I'm really trying to be a positive guy here. I just want to see information going out without all this overlay. I mean, if you're interested in avoiding the extra costs of all these people sitting around tables discussing me and my access thing, and getting on with the policy of efficient government in fewer ways, that's one way we could make sure that there's better government--just get the information out there. I've got an act that I'd like to present to the committee called the public right to know act, and in there I say that the main feature of it is proactive disclosure--do away with a lot of this complicated bureaucracy and parallel tracking of people and their access requests.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I appreciate that.

I wanted to make a point on Mr. Martin's question. The testimony I heard was that the minister wasn't demanding this information. We heard in our last testimony that ministers had the ability to learn this information, and I'd be happy to look at the blues to confirm this. But what we heard today in some of our questions was certainly a variation on what I heard from previous testimony.

There's no question that this committee shares a genuine interest in trying to ensure that access to information is done in an objective way; that regardless of what category you happen to be in, the requests are handled professionally; and that the information is brought in accordance with, and with respect for, the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

There are 25,000 access to information requests—that's on ATI. There are another 36,000 in privacy. We've had words that suggest foot-dragging in getting information out. But put in context, this is a massive operation. There are some 500 people in the federal civil service who deal exclusively with ATI issues.

We've heard testimony that, yes, there have been some issues. Treasury Board Secretariat has been acting on those and doing training and all the right things. Out of all that activity, there's bound to be some information slippages or mishaps. But to suggest that it's broadly spread, I'm not seeing that. Could you comment on this?

[David Gollob]

The access to information system was the subject of a 2002 study by a government task force. In this study it was learned that the government spends approximately $800 million on communications. That's the government generating messages it wishes the public to pick up about its operations, policy, and programs.

We do not have—though it would be interesting to discover—the budget across government for processing those 25,000 access to information requests. But I would suggest that it's far inferior to the $800 million spent on what some might uncharitably describe as “spinning”. This, nevertheless, is a constitutional and legal requirement—providing information when it is requested.

An important part of the issue is this: people are frequently ill-prepared to manage this volume of work, as Colonel Drapeau was saying, and the whole system is seriously under-resourced.

[Col Michel Drapeau]

In 1977, the then minister, the Honourable Francis Fox, tabled a green paper on access to information. Its introduction and most of the data, including the green paper itself, was drawn from the American experience. The Freedom of Information Act became a statute in the United States in the 1960s. The estimate in the green paper was that if we were to use the American experience we should anticipate 100,000 access requests a year.

Some calculations were made on the assumption that Canadians were not quite as nosy or entrepreneurial as our American cousins, and the number was reduced to 70,000. That was in 1977. This figure was used to do the original staffing of access to information staff in the various departments and institutions. So we're not even halfway to what was originally estimated as being the annual ATIP workload throughout the Canadian government.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Can I ask each of you for a simple answer? Should a minister in certain circumstances be entitled to know the name of the requester?

Mr. Gollob, tell me yes or no.

[David Gollob]

No.

[Col Michel Drapeau]

I have no problem, Mr. Peterson, with the fact that on occasion a minister may have to know.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Rubin.

[Ken Rubin]

Yes.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay.

Should anybody in the department other than the information officer be entitled to know?

[David Gollob]

The person who cashes the cheque obviously has to know.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

So that's two people.

[Col Michel Drapeau]

And I would stop at that—two people.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Only two people in the department have to know, but sometimes the minister?

[Col Michel Drapeau]

Well, sometimes there would be more than two—the ATIP coordinator and his staff. So I would say the ATIP staff and whoever.... A legal adviser may on occasion have to know—I'm talking about the Justice Canada legal adviser in the department—and whoever cashes the cheque.