Evidence of meeting #9 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 requests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Whatever he said is available in the blues and will be available in the original record. What he said, he said, and we'll be able to check that.
Now, given that, and given that you had an opportunity to make your comment, Mr. Dhaliwal, what question flows from that?
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
What suggestions would Mr. Alexander have so that this kind of issue will not arise in the future?
Deputy Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
We believe that training, communication, and working with our professional ATIP community and reminding them of their obligations and the procedures through which they happen are the best ways, from where we sit within Treasury Board Secretariat, of ensuring that the legislation and the various regulations and guidelines under it are respected.
From that perspective, when an item pops up like this issue--the Bronskill e-mail and so on--that's something we'll take very seriously. We'll send out a reminder, make sure that our guidance and the training we have on that is really clear. For the 500 people out there working on this, it's really developing a body of knowledge and a practice. That's what we see as really being the most effective.
The role of the privacy and information commissioners in reporting to Parliament and bringing visibility to cases that are actually happening we see as extremely useful, as well. That allows us to refine and pinpoint any gaps there might be in the professional body of knowledge on this.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
You're out of time. Is it a point of order, or do you want to wait until the next round?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
All right, good.
We now go to anyone on the government side, if they have any questions. Feel free not to ask a question if you don't want to.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to our witnesses.
On the point that Mr. Martin raised, I want to go back to your earlier testimony, specifically to the Privacy Act. You outlined that the general principle with respect to the use and disclosure of personal information is that it essentially needs to be contained within the same purpose for which it was collected and/or for a purpose that's consistent with that. So the mere revelation of that personal information, even to the minister, wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent with the scope of the Privacy Act.
Could you comment on that?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
The minister is the head of the institution and has the right to know, basically, what's going on with the access requests, including the name, if he or she chooses. The provision you're referring to is section 8 of the Privacy Act. Section 8 contains the disclosure provisions. Generally speaking, the way the framework of the act works is that you're allowed to disclose with the consent of the individuals. It then lists a series of instances when you can share without the consent of the individual concerned, including the one you referred to, which is a consistent use.
There are a lot of others. For example, there's paragraph 8(2)(e), which says that you can disclose the name of an individual to legal services for a specific purpose. Public interest is another one--subparagraph 8(2)(m)(i)--where you may want to disclose personal information, and that's perfectly correct within the regime that exists.
The comment made by another honourable member about the minister who is in a position to disclose it, for example.... He or she may be able to disclose it under another provision of subsection 8(2), which would be perfectly legitimate for the purposes of the Privacy Act.
So there may be instances when personal information comes in--I'm not just talking about the identity of the requester--when it is appropriate to share it if you can fit it into the provisions. The Privacy Commissioner, as well, in 1997 I believe it was, indicated that there were instances when it was perfectly legitimate to release the information if it fell into those section 8 provisions.
I hope that helps.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you for that.
One other theme you talked about in your earlier testimony is the responsibility that the Treasury Board Secretariat has for training. Could you give us an idea of how broad a program that is, how much training activity in fact goes on in the ATIP community across these 180 organizations and 500 ATIP coordinators? Could you give us a sense of that?
Deputy Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Mr. Chair, we would be very pleased to respond to the honourable member's question on that.
There were, we believe, over 400 people--some of them possibly multiple attendees--who last year attended some of the regular training courses that we put on. We have a cycling series of subjects. We would have what we call just “lunch and learn”, two to three hours, where if you particularly want to learn about this section, the administration of that section, then we would be running those.
They're basically happening pretty well every week and are available for the access officials throughout the community. We see that as a really key thing in making sure we have a very good, strong professional group there who are very well aware of their obligations under this and how to administer this effectively and promptly.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you, Mr. Stanton.
Going back, if I may, to the guidelines that you have, and reading further than I did, because I don't want to leave any particular impressions necessarily, your guidelines say, “In some circumstances”--I say, in some circumstances, not all circumstances--“it is appropriate to disclose the identity of a requester to a departmental official for a consistent purpose such as...”. And then some examples are given.
Now, putting aside the minister, who is at the head of the department and presumably could know whatever the minister wants to know and is under secrecy and whatever, I'm concerned about the wording. It says “for a consistent purpose”. I looked at that and didn't quite figure out what “consistent purpose” means.
I looked at the French version. The French version says,
“for a consistent purpose”.
It makes sense to me, if you have a logical purpose for giving the information to the departmental official. I think “logical” makes more sense than “consistent” in the English term, and I'd suggest that you consider that.
But in any event, your guideline makes it clear, it would seem to me, that you just can't willy-nilly give the information or the name to a departmental official. It has to be for some logical purpose in following up the access to information request. And then you give some examples, but that's not exhaustive.
Am I more or less understanding the guideline correctly?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, that is the case.
Mr. Alexander referred to the training that's given on a consistent basis. We have people who answer cold calls on both the access and the privacy side--and the security side, too, I might add--and we have service standards. We are diligent in getting that information out.
For example, we will have 100-level courses for new members of the ATIP community where they get the basics, but we will have specific courses tailored, for example, on personal information, in which case, of course, this issue would be front and centre. But there are others, where there is a need, such as on advice and recommendation or on solicitor-client privilege, and so there are some tailored courses that are given there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
What I'm getting at is, according to the guidelines that I am reading, it is anticipated by TBS that there are some circumstances in which the disclosure of the identity of the requester is appropriate, but by no means all or indeed most of the time. Am I reading it correctly that way?
Deputy Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
That's correct, Mr. Chair. You're entirely correct to say that "consistent" , as you read it there, is sort of a loaded word. That probably means something, and your highlighting of the translation brings that to the fore.
One of the purposes then of the training we do for new coordinators, and that would happen on the job.... When you see "consistent” used there, it means that it's really only for the purpose for which it was first gathered. So it's the examples that are listed. There may be examples that are more specific to a particular department and the sorts of requests that are there. The head ATIP coordinator would be responsible for making sure the administration of that was done entirely appropriately.
But if I can summarize, it is for a consistent and therefore a very restricted use that it's there. It is not in any way broadly shared. Just because you know, guess what, we can share it, in no way is it that. It is very restrictive, and ATIP coordinators are very well trained to know what that phrase means.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Not to prolong this, but I'm a lawyer. There is a professional helpline in the Law Society of Upper Canada. If a lawyer has a problem or a potential ethical dilemma, there's a hotline they can call and ask an independent third party for some opinion.
Is there such a hotline where an ATIP person who encounters something they might not exactly know how to deal with can immediately call, on a 24/7 basis, or something like that?
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Mr. Chairman, we haven't gone 24/7, but I think we do--
Executive Director, Information, Privacy and Security Policy, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Yes, absolutely. We do have individuals whose task it is, among others, to field calls from the ATIP community on various issues. That is ongoing.
We have service standards. We have for example, 24 hours to respond to the calls. We're quite rigid, recognizing that there are time delays here. This is a discipline where we need to sort out a bunch of issues so you're in a position to respond within 30 days. That's not a lot of time when you consider weekends, etc. We're quite proud about the service we provide in that regard, in addition to our timelines that we follow.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Okay. Thank you.
I have Mr. Peterson, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Dhaliwal. Does anybody else want to speak?
Bloc
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chairman, I was listening to Mr. Martin earlier talk about some major soul searching being in order in relation to what we have just learned.
But when you look at the origins of the Access to Information Act, it seems to me that the goals were all focussed on transparency. The idea was for the Government to be more transparent and enhance public trust.
It's funny, but when I look at the examples, and specifically situations such as these, I have the feeling that we're actually dealing with the reverse situation. If the public were to find out what is going on, I'm not sure that their confidence would be greater; it seems to me it would decline.
We were also talking about the amber light process whereby, when ATIP requests are filed, all across Government there is an analysis of the requests that have been filed under the Access to Information Act. As a result, people look at them and prepare strategies for responding to them that, in a way, are specifically tied to the information request in a specific department, even though this is a process that normally occurs under any government.
By the way, I should mention that I drew my information from an article written by Mr. Allister Roberts, a university professor, and published in Public Ethics; he carried out a number of studies and filed access to information requests with a view to proving his assertions. At the Privy Council level, he says that the amber light process should not delay requests for answers. But in actual fact, based on his studies, the response time for ATIP requests is not always met. That is the case for 40 per cent of requests from political parties, for 38 per cent of requests from the media, and only 17 per cent of requests from other sources. It seems to me that this is fairly important information to look at as we try to determine why it is that ATIP requests from the media and political parties are delayed. Is it to allow time to develop an appropriate strategy or prevent the media from accessing the information too quickly?
That's my question. Are you aware of this?