Evidence of meeting #55 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.
ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It's ensuring that the letter going to the requester is appropriate. It's ensuring that the steps that have been taken in the file are appropriate as well.
Liberal
Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Kutz, I'm sure you can tell our confusion around 2002, 2003, 2004, and then the last two. I think we're still trying to get our heads around it. It seems to us that something has obviously changed in those two different timeframes. You were saying that you have done an injury test on all of them to stay consistent with all of that, but I'm trying to understand, then, what changed in world affairs between, let's say, 2004 and 2006. If the injury test that you have applied is the same, why was it appropriate to not release some of the things in 2006 that were released in 2004, specifically things like torture? If the consistency test remained the same and was consistent, what has changed in the world in international affairs?
Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Thank you for the question.
The package of reports to which you refer was reviewed as a package, so the same test was applied to all of those years at the same time.
Now, about the single appearance of a word in one report—you refer to the existence of the word “torture”, which was released in some of the early reports—I heard the quoting from one of the members this morning, I'm not certain which one, of a significant passage that contained that word. That passage would have been reviewed in accordance with the act. The reference to torture in that passage was in fact contained in a public report that had been issued by the Afghan human rights committee. So that was information that was public and had been released as such by that institution.
Liberal
Glen Pearson Liberal London North Centre, ON
Ms. Kutz, because we look at things like torture as a war crime, you can see how the access to information is so important to Canadians who look to committees like this to make sure we do our job. So you're trying to weigh an injury test for certain individuals and sources and others, and there's also the broader issue of something like war crimes. This is probably impossible for you to answer, but it's something I've wrestled with. How do you wrestle with that when you choose what to release and what not to release?
How do you wrestle with that yourself? Does that go into your prioritization of what you will release and what you don't release?
Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
The issue you're referring to is certainly a question of great importance to Canadians, and I fully agree with that, but the question here is related to the annual human rights reports and their purpose and function.
The annual human rights reports are used as an internal working document to inform the policy process, to provide the background and the backdrop to recommendations and to programming and to the work of the department. Whether this is the sole or the best source of information for the public on questions of torture or on the Canadian government's stance on torture is a very different question.
These reports are not designed to be a public government statement on human rights situations in a particular country. They are designed to be working tools providing assessments, frank information, and recommendations to the policy process.
Other vehicles are more appropriate for the kinds of purposes to which you refer.
Thank you.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.
I have a couple of specific questions. First to Mr. Switzer and perhaps to Madame Archambault, but we'll start with Mr. Switzer.
In the outline, the timeline that involved the request 605, which I understand was the general request put forward by Mr. Esau, Mr. Switzer, it indicates in here that you reviewed the approach to certain exemptions in that report on or about the middle of March and that you undertook, in fact you requested, to review these exemptions, if I can call them that. “Redaction” is another word that has been used. You got a copy of the unmarked document to go through that review, and ultimately you finished that review on or about April 13, so almost a month's time went by in the course of this review where you're essentially looking at a document, reviewing the exemptions that took place.
Could you describe what sort of dialogue went on between you and, in this case, Mr. Bryan from GHH to go through the process of giving yourself, as the reviewing officer, the comfort level you needed that the redactions were consistent and proper and in accordance with the act?
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
If I can just correct you--
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
--the file I worked on was 466.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It has nothing to do with 605.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
But you are right about the timeframe.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
I received the documents from GHH and proceeded to send them to our clerks downstairs to put on our electronic system--it makes it easier for giving out to the requesters. They are very busy, so it took a few days. They got back to me and said they couldn't scan these documents into our system because they were highlighted in different colours. What we ask our OPIs is to highlight in yellow if they have a recommendation for protection, because when that goes into our system it doesn't pick up the yellow; it's a clean document and it appears like any page.
Unfortunately, in this case there was green and blue and some handwriting, so I had to go back and ask them if they would get cleaner copy, which happened, but it took them some time. It's my understanding that the reason this file is partially late is because GHH had very few staff members. The director, Gwyn, I believe, was in and out of the office—in and out of the country, I believe—and she is the sign-off individual, so it was difficult for them to get everything together to get back to us.
In the meantime, I have approximately 30 to 40 requests. To give you the process, the very first priority on a request is to go out and task for documents. You can't work on a file if you don't have something to work on. If you're getting two or three of these a day and you have to go out to different areas to task, that becomes your priority. There are going to be times when this is going to get set aside because the priority is here.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
So you've got 30 or 40 of these files sitting on your desk at any one time, active?
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Yes.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Then there's this exchange of information.
Did you get the sense that GHH is doing all it can? Obviously, we've heard that there are some practical barriers here to moving this process along. Obviously, this isn't the only file you're working on in the course of several weeks in March and April.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Nor is it the only one that has this delay because of.... It depends on the number of documents you're going to get. If you get one document, one page, that's not very difficult to deal with. But if you get 1,000 pages, and I have dealt in the past with records containing 15,000 pages, well, when you're trying to do that and maintain the rest of your files, because the bottom line is...and I think Mr. Tilson referred to this earlier this morning. Well, what can you do to change the act? I don't know. The timeframe is 30 days. That's not working days; that's calendar days. So on Saturday and Sunday when nobody is in the office, or on a holiday when nobody is around, that day counts toward the timeframe. So there are times when you're not going to meet that timeframe. That's part of the reason, and the fact that they had to be sent back.
When I got the documents back, I proceeded to work on them at that point in time.
Conservative
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
You stated that you were the one who verified the document. You received it on March 14 and conducted a preliminary examination. Between March 11 and March 19, you discussed a possible exemption with Gerry Brian. On March 26, you received the original documents without any annotations and you finished reviewing them on April 13.
Once you completed your examination, to whom did you send the file?
