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.
NDP
ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
I am.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
We were interrupted by others.
It seems to me that the human rights reports that were requested by Professor Attaran and Jeff Esau...were they both flagged as “MINA alert”? I don't know the numbers. You had the three numbers of the cases that you made reference to frequently here. Were all of those flagged “MINA alert”?
ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Two were: 466 and 605 were.
NDP
ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Redacted.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
That's five minutes, Mr. Martin.
It's my turn. I'm curious about timelines and the reference to 604.
Mr. Switzer, you worked on that one. On April 12, GHH advises that responsive records are already being gathered from a previous request. It's obvious that we're referring to Professor Attaran.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
On April 23, 11 days later, Professor Attaran gets his CD-ROM.
Why did it take until May 16, that is, after or about the time Mr. Esau appeared before this committee, for him to get the same material?
Mr. Switzer.
ATIP Consultant, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
You would have to address that question to Madame Sabourin. It was in her hands before that, so I cannot answer.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
All right. I might as well ask Ms. Nixon or Ms. Archambault. Can either of you answer that specific question?
ATIP Team Leader, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
No, it would have to be her.
Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It would have to be her.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you very much.
Ms. Kutz, in reference to 605, on March 22 a response letter was sent to the applicant stating, “Therefore, no such report on human rights performance in other countries exist.” If I recall the e-mail sequence we've received, that is the wording that GHH sent to ATIP. ATIP then quoted that wording to the requester. You've already told us you were the author.
What do you mean by “no such report on human rights performance in other countries exist”, when we've already heard from the deputy minister that there were 111 different country reports last year alone?
Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The sentence with the words “no such report” refers to the immediately preceding sentence—which was also part of my response—that “Canada does not produce an annual human rights report analogous to the reports produced by, for example, the United States or the United Kingdom”. Therefore, when I referred to “such”, I was referring to the sentence immediately preceding that referring to the kinds of global reports produced by other countries.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
In the correspondence on the same file of April 10, Mr. Esau was trying to explain what he was getting at. On April 5 he was asking for a “section/chapter/case summary entitled “Afghanistan-2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights”. He got it almost exactly right, except it wasn't a chapter, section, or case summary; it was a separate report. You're indicating in your response in this chronology that it would take hundreds of hours to locate all the reports.
What could you possibly mean by that?
Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Mr. Chairman, the specific wording of the follow-up request did not come directly to me. It was conveyed to me over the telephone that there was a follow-up request asking about the original request for the 2005-06 report. I reiterated that we didn't produce such a report. When challenged and pressed by the ATIP officer who was looking to further fulfill Mr. Esau's request, I elaborated to explain that, yes, we do produce these other reports—as Mr. Esau would have known, since he in fact had an active request for the 2006 report in the system.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
My question is that he specifically asked for “Afghanistan 2006”. As far as I can read from the chronology, your response was, “If Requester wants Division”—and I presume that means GHH—“to search for each report”—and I don't know what you mean by “each report”, as he asked for “Afghanistan 2006”—“it would take 'hundreds' of hours to locate all the reports”.
I don't understand what your response was, when it was clear that Mr. Esau was then looking for “Afghanistan 2006”. Why didn't you just give it to him?
Director, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Health and Population Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
When I received the follow-up request, I did not receive this text from the requester. I received a request for confirmation that Canada does not produce the overall report--the initial report he had asked for. I then indicated that we do produce the annual country reports but that given the volume we would need to know exactly what it was he was looking for. Because of the volume of reports and the number of years, without some clarification it would take hundreds of hours to search for and produce all the reports.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Ms. Archambault, you were working on this file. Did you let Ms. Kutz or anyone in her division know what Mr. Esau said on April 5?
Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Yes, I did. If you will read further.... Maybe I didn't.
Senior ATIP Analyst, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
He was giving the Afghanistan report as an example of what he was looking for. He wasn't reiterating that he wanted it at this particular point.