Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 4th, 2006

[Jim Alexander]

We've not attempted to gather information on that, in that the Privacy Commissioner had initiated something there at the behest of or after discussions with the President of the Treasury Board. From that perspective, I don't know the details on that one at all, and so I really couldn't speak to that, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

This is the last question.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

You testified moments ago to the effect that the practice of circulating names of requesters was very limited and wasn't a general practice or problem. This doesn't correspond to the testimony given us by Mr. Leadbeater of the Office of the Information Commissioner, who suggested that it is a fairly widespread practice, a long-standing one. He brought to us the Rowat case in 2001. I mentioned to the committee, of course, the Eggleton case in 1999. We had CBC quoting a former Liberal staffer saying that “access requests were routinely obtained during the Jean Chrétien government” by political staff. So we have some evidence, some testimony, that this has been a long-standing practice, and you seem to be contradicting that.

Could you address why you think there might be a contradiction?

[Jim Alexander]

The cases you've gone through are the ones that we're aware of as well, and out of 25,000 per year--25,000 in the fiscal year 2004-05--that's the sort of number that we're seeing. In our role in administering the access to information policy, we at Treasury Board Secretariat actually do not know what the sum total of all of the complaints are that are filed with the Information Commissioner. Those go to the Information Commissioner. He reports to Parliament in his annual report, in terms of the administration of the act and how things are going broadly there, and we carefully look at those and deal with officials in his office there.

To the best of our knowledge, and in our experience in dealing with that and looking at those reports year after year, looking at departmental reports, there are very, very isolated incidents like you've described that do happen, but in no way do we see it as widespread, and a widespread practice. We have no indications of that from where we sit in administering the policy or any of the information that we have.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Kenney.

Following up on Mr. Kenney, I haven't seen the document, but in your testimony you said that you had seen it. Does that mean you had seen it at the time that it was originally circulated?

[Jim Alexander]

Mr. Chair, I saw it after the media articles. I asked to see if I could see a copy of this particular e-mail to look at exactly what it did say and how it was phrased and what's happening on this--so we can actually figure out how we should respond as a policy centre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

All right. So you saw it after the story broke, basically.

[Jim Alexander]

Absolutely. It was after the story broke.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

When you saw a person's name in that e-mail, did that cause you concern?

[Jim Alexander]

The concern, I guess, was already raised. By the time I saw it, I believe the President of the Treasury Board and the Privacy Commissioner had already talked, and they had indicated that there was an investigation under way. Therefore, I knew someone was going to get to the bottom of it who had the resources and the responsibility for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, sir.

Ms. Lavallée, please.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Did you hear the exchanges that occurred in Question Period between members of the Liberal Party and Conservative members, yes or no?

[Jim Alexander]

I heard about the exchanges. I didn't watch them in detail. I heard that there were exchanges.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

In fact, it was very interesting to listen to those exchanges between the two parties that have held office in the last year, and who have therefore been in power and had ministers' offices with political staff. They both seemed to be saying that it was a well-established procedure for political staff to get together with officials to look at all the access to information requests. As far as I can recall, no one mentioned any names, but I will do my homework and re-read the record of those exchanges.

The fact remains that there seems to be a well-established practice, which neither one denied, involving an exchange of information about ATIP requests in order to determine who is doing what and how, identifying the different categories.

Also, you say that there are very few complaints. It's quite obvious that there aren't many. Personally, I have made access to information requests, but I have no way of knowing whether my name was disclosed. I have no way of knowing whether someone might have disclosed my name. So, it's obvious that there are not going to be many complaints, because people simply are not aware.

On the other hand, you say that you are aware of five cases out of 25,000. You may be right, but you only know about five. However, is it possible that there is a well-established practice that involves going through the most sensitive ATIP requests and simply disclosing the names -- in other words, the names are not necessarily the product of people's suppositions? In fact, I find this whole theory of people simply guessing or assuming that it's a particular person -- I wouldn't want to say far-fetched, I would never say that -- rather strange.

Is it possible that the practice of exchanging this information is well established, that there aren't many complaints because people don't know what's going on, and that you are only aware of five cases because this is a well-established practice and no one ever complains.

Finally, should I not file an access to information request to find out whether there are other e-mails similar to the ones Mr. Kenney tabled here, last week, before the Committee?

[Donald Lemieux]

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to try and answer those questions.

To my knowledge -- and here I'm referring to Mr. Alexander's and my branch -- there is no such well-established practice. Your comments relate to exchanges between politicians. Personally, I am not aware of the details. I believe Mr. Alexander said that he was not aware of them either. So, I really can't comment on that.

In terms of complaints, of course we are aware of cases brought to our attention, including the one reported that involved Mr. Rowat and others, such as Mr. Eggleton. Indeed, we acted quickly as soon as we learned there was an alleged violation. We issued an implementation report in 1999. That was how we responded.

I don't recall our mentioning specifically that there were five cases; however, we did say there had been a handful.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I heard reference made to five cases.

[Donald Lemieux]

From the perspective of its role, does Treasury Board see that? Well, our answer would have to be no, we do not see that. On the other hand, if there were 25,000 ATIP requests in 2004-2005 and about 1,500 or 1,600 are subject to further research, the Information Commissioner will report on some of them in his report. That report does not deal with the 1,500 cases per year. With each one, if I understood what Mr. Leadbeater said, the complaint is not the reason for the disclosure of an applicant's name. It may be through investigating another complaint that he realizes that information has been disclosed or that people have talked about it. But the way the system is currently structured, the Commissioner does not report on every complaint. We do not have access to all his investigations and reports, because that is a confidential process. It's a little difficult for us to know as much about this as the Commissioner, because he is really on the ground. He investigates, he can use pressure, he can go in and investigate in a specific area, for example, or about a specific complaint, and then determine whether there is anything else involved; or he may go off in a different direction. I hope that answers your question somewhat.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Yes, it does. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Merci.

Mr. Kenney.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Alexander, you mentioned that your secretariat distributed an e-mail to people throughout the government following the revelation of this e-mail. I have here an e-mail dated September 21 from Wayne Wouters, secretary of the Treasury Board, to deputy heads, copied to ATIP coordinators, reminding them of their obligations under the Privacy Act.

Is this the e-mail you're referring to?

[Jim Alexander]

Yes. There was also a more detailed e-mail that we sent to the ATIP coordinators themselves.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I appreciate that. This is dated September 21. I think the article that provoked this was dated September 20, so it was fairly prompt action.

I understand that the President of the Treasury Board asked officials to remind people throughout the government of their legal obligations. Is that your understanding?

[Jim Alexander]

That is correct. The President of the Treasury Board asked that we do so. Fortunately we were in the process as well, but that is why it was out on September 21.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

So the political and bureaucratic trains were on the same track.