Information & Ethics Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Leonard Edwards]

That's a very interesting question and one that I think—

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

...that begs an interesting answer.

[Leonard Edwards]

—could use some discussion.

In the case of the United States, for example, these reports are prepared, as I said earlier, with public consumption in mind. We have not been preparing such reports in Canada. Indeed, our preference in the use of our officers' limited time at our missions abroad is to prepare these confidential reports for the government for use in advising and in preparing policy.

At the end of the day, one might think—and I can understand why many people do think—that these documents should or could be made available. The fact is that they are entirely different in terms of their purpose. They are different in terms of the source material. They are documents that will have the Government of Canada's imprimatur on them, so they are seen to be official opinions and views of the Government of Canada. That is an entirely different type of situation from what you get with respect to other reports; again, maybe I can refer to the American reports, which are drafted at source to be for public consumption.

When we do get these reports from our own people, we need to look at them carefully before we make them public to ensure we are not releasing information that might jeopardize a source. Sometimes those sources might well be put at risk by that. Sometimes even just what might seem to be an innocuous reference in a report can, by—

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That is what I wanted to ask you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Vincent.

Mr. Stanton is next.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Good morning, Mr. Edwards.

In terms of context and background here, how many years have you been in a situation in senior levels of a department of the federal government in which you've had an ATIP unit under your charge? You mentioned, for example, that you were in Agriculture for a while. How many years have you been involved in this business?

[Leonard Edwards]

Well, I was Deputy Minister of International Trade for three years. Then I was three years at Agriculture, and for the last four months I've been in Foreign Affairs. So if you add that all up, I get pretty close to six and a bit years.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

We know the Access to Information Act has been around since 1983. If you were to comment on the nature of, and describe for me, in your experience, changes in the access to information environment looking back, say, to the late 1990s, when perhaps you were involved and seeing how....

You've made reference to the Information Commissioner's reports and so on, and on different report cards and different departments. In your experience, how is Canada--the Government of Canada, specifically--evolving in its management of and dealings with access to information requests?

[Leonard Edwards]

You're forcing me to get into my memory banks here a bit, but over time, of course, the main feature has been the increased use of the legislation to have access to information. So just the increase of requests has multiplied.

Over time, of course, the government, and I'm thinking here of the public service—let me say the public service—has occasionally revisited its processes and so forth to ensure that we were still meeting the requirements of the act, that we were being prompt enough, and that we had the right people, and so forth. I think that is a constant process that has been part of what senior managers of the public service have been doing.

I think it's a continual challenge to try to keep ahead of the demand, which has grown, I'd say, exponentially, and particularly over the last year or so. We simply have to keep ahead of the game. That's all I can say. So we need to continue to sit down with other senior public servants and try to find ways to do that, and talk to the information commissioner and ensure that we are doing as best we can to meet the requirements of the act.

I don't think anyone in the public service thinks for a minute that these requirements are going to go away. In fact, they are probably going to increase, and we have to be ready for that.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Does the management of the ATIP environment within your department...? Maybe you could shine some light on what component that has, for example, in your regular meetings of department heads. Is this becoming an evolving and increasing part of the culture within the management of your operations?

[Leonard Edwards]

Yes, it is. Since arriving at the department I have tried to do something I did in Agriculture, which is to have a weekly review of ATIP requests at the senior management level, and we're getting there. The issue in my department is that the ATIP requests are vastly larger in number than they were at Agriculture, so the management of that process is very much more difficult. But what I want to do is remind, on a weekly basis, my senior managers at the assistant deputy minister level what our record is, where we stand in terms of our percentage of late shows, and so on, so that we can do better and better. I think that sort of exposure to the realities of where we are in terms of meeting these requests is an important management tool.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stanton.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me get back to this idea that we've had users of the access to information system cite a chill, that they sense a noticeable chill in terms of accessing information. That's of primary concern to this committee. We're all about freedom of information and knocking down the barriers to freedom of information.

In 2002, the following language was not censored from the annual reports on Afghanistan: “Arbitrary detention, beatings and the use of torture to extract confessions of guilt continue to be wide spread.” That was not redacted or censored.

In 2003, this was not censored: If you don't give up your house...“don't insist other wise you will be jailed and tortured”. This is from the AIHRC report, your report of 2003 that came to your office.

In 2004, this language was not censored or redacted:

The monitoring reports of AIHRC state that torture continues to take place as a routine part of...procedure, particularly at the investigation stage.... [In one example is a man named] Qajkol, arrested...following the abduction of three UN workers.... [He] died while in...custody. AIHRC investigated and concluded that Qajkol died as a result of...torture, [even though his death was] cited as “death due to natural causes”. [His] five year old son...[when interviewed] following Qajkol's death in custody said, “Somebody had taken out my father's finger nails”.

That was in 2004, in the annual reports that your office gets, and it was not censored at all.

But the 2005 report, which came to your office on January 31, 2006, after the federal election.... This is from an access to information request from your office. You've given me the dates that you received these reports, so you received your 2005 report on January 31, 2006. Now, in that report—I have it right here—all references to torture are censored. I know they're censored because they're only greyed out; they're not blacked out. That's the document everybody is saying shouldn't exist. It does exist. It's in the public domain.

In the 2006 report, which was received in your office January 17, 2007, all references to torture are censored and blacked out.

Jump forward to March 22, 2007. You're telling people that no such reports even exist. Is that not a prima facie case of a chill or a demonstrable difference in the administration of access to information from DFAIT from the previous Liberal administration to the current Conservative administration?

Do you see the point I'm making here?

[Leonard Edwards]

I see the line of your questioning, yes.

First of all, I thought we had established that the requests we had in 2007 were not for the same report. We in fact have provided the 2006 report.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

There is no 2007 report. The 2006 report has been provided completely blacked out. That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Not completely.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

All reference to torture of Afghan prisoners has been blacked out.

[Leonard Edwards]

I don't know. I don't have that document, and I was not aware that anyone in the committee should have access to that document.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Just for clarification—

[Leonard Edwards]

I'm not prepared to discuss that document, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Excuse me, folks.

We have no way, Mr. Martin, of knowing what's behind the blackout. He does, but it's his job to maintain his view of the Access to Information Act, which he made clear in a previous letter.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But he's made the arbitrary choice that all reference to torture should be blacked out. We're not saying that this is being in compliance with the Access to Information Act?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Martin, I'm sorry. For him to answer that question, he would have to agree that there are references to torture, which would mean he would be discussing blacked out aspects of the report, which he's already indicated he won't do.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chairman, my only question then is, why is it okay to admit that the torture of detainees is happening regularly in Afghanistan in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, but in this administration, 2006 and 2007, all reference to torture has to be deleted?