Evidence of meeting #43 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
As part of the systemic review we do with a department, there's usually an agreed-upon action plan for improvement that we tend to review. But it's not really an audit. It's a form of an audit, if you like.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Exactly.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Do you assign that to a certain number of investigators who do that kind of work? How does it work?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
This year we used consultants to do it.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
For the actual report card, yes, but the reviews are done by our investigators.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Right. And they're shared, then, with the deputy minister and the minister's staff on those issues?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Conservative
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes, they are.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
If somebody wanted to see that, would we have to have an access to information request for that, or is it something that gets published?
Deputy Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You could go to our website.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Go to our website and all the report cards are there from previous years.
As a matter of fact, one of the good innovations, outside of amending the act, was the creation of this committee. Last year the committee actually called some of the departments in on their report card performance, and I would hope that the committee would continue.
I've already gone down that line, because I've already had feedback from deputy ministers I've met with that it has some considerable impact when a committee takes an interest in their performance on ATI.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Do you report to this committee on which report cards are done?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We will be tabling our annual report in a little more than a month's time. It will be automatically referred to this committee for consideration.
Conservative
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Page 1 of your document states that your office has seven general counsels paid a total of $776,000.
Are they your litigation team? Are they legal counsel working under your orders? Do they make decisions? In the case of the report that we have been talking about all morning, and which has been cut left and right and centre, were they involved in the decision-making process? Who decides?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes, they are the litigation team. They handle litigation in the Federal Court and they also provide legal services to the information commissioner and his deputy.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Fine. I am rather new to this and I wanted to understand who makes the decisions with regard to the various document.
Deputy Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The commissioner makes the decisions.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Do you decide what is censored, what is said or not said, what is disclosed or not disclosed? You are surely not the only one to review documents and make decisions. I imagine that your staff review documents before you and then send everything to your office for approval.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
There is an investigation process, which was described earlier. The investigators meet with the coordinators. They meet with the people who made the decisions, as the Deputy Commissioner mentioned, and finally, the Deputy Commissioner himself meets with a deputy minister to try to settle the dispute and recommend whether or not the information will be disclosed.
If there is official disagreement, then it is recommended that I issue a report in accordance with section 37 of the Act, which provides for a recommendation to a department. If the minister still refuses, the applicant may ask to take the matter to the Federal Court. The Court will then decide whether or not the information will be disclosed.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
In the context of the report, how... I apologize for raising this matter, which is somewhat off the topic of the estimates, but I would like to understand how the decision is made.
First of all, there is an access to information request made. The document arrives at your offices and an investigation is carried out. But what is the focus of the investigation? What do people want to know? How do you proceed when disclosing certain information could lead to some problems? How do you go about this exactly?
