Evidence of meeting #51 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 policy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Would that level of activity, for example, be consistent with the proportion of which DFAIT is dealing with the overall universe of ATIP requests?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, I would say so. There's nothing unusual about that.
I would qualify DFAIT, from my experience, as being a department with difficult files, because at the record retrieval stage it's very difficult to go and get the material that you need to assess, because you're dealing with embassies and things outside of the country. That's a big issue for them; it's complicated simply dealing with the records, getting the records and then dealing with them.
No, I wouldn't say that DFAIT is a big user as far as that's concerned.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Your department offers much in the way of training programs and information available to ATIP coordinators and their staff.
Has DFAIT participated in these types of training programs this year and last year?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, I would say so.
We have community meetings, and there are always representatives from DFAIT staff, as far as I know. Obviously, once you've taken the basic training, you've got that under your belt.
Madame Sabourin is quite knowledgeable. As I say, I get calls on the odd occasion on stuff, as do my staff. So yes, they do participate.
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question is for Mr. Kratchanov.
First of all, you said that you had not seen this document and that you had not worked on it. At the outset, you told us that you did not know this document.
Has anyone else in your section worked on this document?
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
To my knowledge, no. I have asked my work colleagues whether they have been consulted on the issue. As far as I can tell, there were no consultations by the Foreign Affairs Access to Information Office when the access request was processed.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Very well.
Once an access request is made, the document is checked, section by section, so see what can be redacted or blacked out.
Is the document sent to your section to ensure that the data has been or will be redacted pursuant to the law, section 15 or other subsequent sections? Is it then sent to your section to determine whether the person who worked on the document did so in compliance with the law?
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
Generally speaking, the answer is no. The government receives approximately 25,000 access requests. There are many more requests made under the Privacy Act.
The access to information and privacy offices ask for legal opinions from the Department of Justice on only a very small percentage of access requests. Access offices process the vast majority of requests without obtaining a particular legal opinion.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
This is a controversial document, and I think that people hesitated to distribute it because doing so would cause problems.
Furthermore, given the controversy it could generate, the document was inspected by several people. I imagine that was why there was such a delay, given the scope of the impact it could have had. There was no request for a legal opinion from the Department of Justice to see whether things would be done or not in this document.
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
No, not to my knowledge.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
I have a question for Mr. Alexander, from Treasury Board.
If there are things you do not appreciate in the document and you are not sure whether the right section of the act was used to redact parts of the document, how can you know whether the person was justified in redacting or blacking out sentences in the document?
Deputy Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Mr. Chair, on any particular file, we really do not have involvement at all on reviewing how the file was treated. Much as Mr. Kratchanov was saying concerning the Department of Justice, we do not get involved in the review of individual files or the assessment as to whether the exemptions and exclusions were properly applied. We provide general assistance and guidance but do not see individual files from other departments.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
According to the latest report by the Office of the Information Commissioner, you are the first to challenge rulings by that organization. You are the ones who do so most regularly. You therefore have experience in the matter.
If I am not satisfied by the decision made, given what has been blacked out in the document, I would like you to tell me, based on your experience challenging decisions, how I can check whether the law was upheld.
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
If you are not satisfied with the answer you received from the department to which you sent an access to information request, you have to contact the commissioner.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
I am not satisfied with the document and the fact that 25 pages have been blacked out. I do not know what those pages contained.
What I read in the annual report was that all the challenges heard by the tribunal came from Treasury Board. Someone therefore is challenging things.
We now have a person who says he is applying the law, but how can we know that that is really the case when 25 people worked on the document and asked that such and such a part should be blacked out? As an ordinary citizen, how can I know whether the law was applied or, on the contrary, whether people wanted to hide things from citizens and protect the government?
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
As I said before, you have to file a complaint with the Information Commissioner, who is authorized to read the document in its non-redacted form. The commissioner can judge whether the exemptions and exclusions were properly applied and to talk with the people at the department in question.
Director / General Counsel, Information Law and Privacy Section, Department of Justice
In this case, the Department of Foreign Affairs, given that they received the request and processed it.
Discussions are held between both parties, and they often lead to further disclosure by institutions. In the vast majority of cases, that is how complaints are settled, to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of Information.
You said that the government sometimes challenged the commissioner's decisions or recommendations. That had indeed occurred on occasion.
Bloc
Liberal
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming. I know my questions will be a bit of a summary of what you've told us here.
You indicated a couple of times that you know the ATIP person responsible for this at the end of the day. She was a witness for us in a previous meeting. I believe she stated that she started this type of work in 1989, so she's been around for a number of years. Is her level of experience high in the government for this type of work, or is it average? Could you comment on her experience level?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'd say it would be quite high for someone who was in the field that long, who worked their way up to being a coordinator and worked in more than one department, which I think is quite important because you get to see different issues. Different exemptions apply to different departments.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I took the time--much to the chagrin to some of my colleagues--to go over the exemptions that were in the act. I hope you didn't read those blues. So there are exemptions. The one that deals with international relations would have a particular interest to this department. Is that an accurate statement?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
That is correct.
