Yes, I received that in English only. That's my first language. I don't have a second language, although I was raised in Newfoundland, so I guess that's sort of another language.
In any event, I was not satisfied with that answer. I had reason to believe, from sources that I keep confidential, that a report about Afghanistan in particular, among other countries, did exist. I pursued this with the officer who was responsible for this file. After I received this response, I went back to her in a series of e-mail traffic that I can provide to the clerk. I wanted to make sure she wasn't saying something didn't exist based on an unsympathetic reading of my request.
The Treasury Board guidelines that help access to information coordinators respond to requests give guidance on how to treat requesters. I reminded her of that, and I quoted it to her. I just said:
If the records do exist but I failed to use the precise title of the reports, please let me know. In other words, I'm hearing from other sources that DFAIT does in fact produce human rights reports and I just want to confirm DFAIT's position on this, that human rights reports DO NOT exist and that my request was not interpreted with undue narrowness by DFAIT. I want to be very clear on this.
She wrote back, saying, “We feel that we've answered the letter of your request.”
I then went back to her and said, “I'm assuming that there is some type of report produced by somebody, somewhere in DFAIT about issues concerning Afghanistan?” I then quoted the report “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights”, and stated that I felt this was a chapter in a larger document. I wasn't sure, but I said: “My understanding is that this document or chapter or section or case study or whatever you want to call it exists, and if, by calling it annual or semi-annual I misled you, please be disabused of that.”
She said she would do some digging and get back to me. I'm presuming that what she did was go back to the people who would have produced the document that I quoted, the record holders. She basically came back and said that DFAIT only produces reports on a “situational basis”.
I wrote an e-mail back to her confirming the points that she had given to me over the phone: that these situational reports deal with one country at a time, and that it would take more than a hundred hours of search time to obtain all these individual reports that were produced in one year. For a researcher, a hundred hours translates into ten dollars an hour, so what they were asking for was a thousand dollars to find the reports, which for a private citizen is very steep—and the fees are something I can answer questions about.
She confirmed that I was correct in all the points that I had made back to her. That's when I felt I had battled the department to a standstill on this one, and that they were not, even with egging on and gentle persuading and prodding, willing to come out and say what they had and that I should pick what I wanted.
Because I never like to be caught up the creek without an ATI request, I had simultaneously submitted another request at the same time as I had submitted the one I've just spoken about. This one was for “a copy of the latest assessment by DFAIT of the human rights practices, compliance, and performance of Afghanistan”. That's pretty direct. It's pretty specific. In the event that they were not able to interpret this in an appropriate way, this was the second thing I sent in.
They received that request on March 13, which was the day before they received the one I spoke about just a few minutes ago. I have not received an answer to this request. What I got back was a letter saying they had received it, but that they were going to need an extension of 90 days beyond the 30-day statutory time limit. That means that instead of giving me a response on April 13, which would have been 30 days, they needed three months after April 13. I found that interesting, given the fact that by this point redacted versions of it were appearing in the newspaper.
I got a call late yesterday afternoon, because I had asked about the status of my request. I was told it was being sent to me post-haste, but I haven't received it yet. I still have not received a formal response from DFAIT on this second request.
That status inquiry was not signed by Madame Sabourin either. It was signed on her behalf by somebody whose signature I can't read.
So that's how I became involved. At each point that I had communications with the department, I basically went back to the people who retained me and told them what I was getting and what I had said, because I needed them to have all the facts. At one point, we agreed that I would be submitting a complaint to the Information Commissioner.
I don't submit such a complaint lightly, because having worked in the ATIP world, I know that a complaint just takes up the time of the people who are supposed to be working on the requests. If you flood or inundate a department with complaints that are really not something you want badly, you're just bunging up the system, as it were.
In this case, I felt a complaint to the Information Commissioner was in order, and I wrote one on April 26, within the sixty-day allowable time limit. I basically said that I felt the department had inappropriately and wrongfully and knowingly withheld a document that I was after, and that the relevant records did exist and they knew they existed.
That's my allegation. That's my contention, my personal belief as expressed to the Information Commissioner. I'm willing to share that. This is normally confidential correspondence between me or any person and the Information Commissioner, but that's what the wording of that is, so that people understand.