Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As you said, I'm a long-time advocate for the public's right to know and an experienced access user. I'm also not bilingual.
I am thankful for this opportunity to contribute to the access committee's continued attempt to get more than a largely dysfunctional Access to Information Act.
This committee, back in the fall of 2006, was at the point of agreeing to send forward one modest reform legislative package, namely, the former Information Commissioner Reid's 2005 open government bill. That was an alternative then, but nevertheless a full bill, not a half measure.
But times change. Instead, piecemeal amendments to the access act were made in view of the Accountability Act in 2006. Unfortunately, while coverage was extended to more crown corporations, foundations, and parliamentary officers, it came at a price. The amendments brought with them broad exemptions and exclusions.
What Canadians are faced with now is even more of a right to secrecy, delay, and obstruction act. Leadership direction and vision to change this state of affairs is needed. Canada sits internationally at the bottom of the heap when it comes to the public's information rights. The short laundry list of possible amendments to the current Information Commissioner model does not provide that vision. His suggestions would have the effect of bureaucratizing further the existing dysfunctional access act and lessening the limited information rights the public would be accorded under the access act. I urge the committee not to adopt such a limited, shortsighted, and counterproductive administrative and punitive mix as Commissioner Marleau brought forward.
I come here, however, to respond positively to the House access committee's broader request for legislative bill options, with the vision to change the secrecy practices and bureaucratic mindset so prevalent in Ottawa. My proposed bill, which was circulated, entitled the Public Right to Know Act—and it would be good if the committee could table it in some form—is truly a second-generation freedom of information model act. It stands squarely for fuller transparency. It is a statutory effort to follow both the dollar trail and the safety, environmental, and consumer document trail, something the current act really falls down on. It seeks a way out of the current access to information crisis that is mostly about stalling release and issuing denials. It seeks to address for better information in growing economic and safety uncertainties, in these times.
The bill may be far from perfect in its drafting and was done on my own time, as a public service, but I'm reminded of how such access pioneers as MPs Barry Mather and Ged Baldwin must have felt as they developed model bills. They, too, sought a way out of the growing secrecy classifications being applied to government information and wanted a means to combat increasing public alienation and to restore trust in government.
Let me briefly explain the bill's twelve main features, many of which are found in progressive freedom of information acts around the world.
First, it would make information rights a constitutional right and not just a statutory obligation. Explicitly, then, the bill makes clear that the freedom of expression section found in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes seeking, retrieving, and imparting information and opinion in any kind or any form. This is not a hard change to make, but a very, very significant one.
Second—and you have heard from other witnesses—there is a major change in the purpose clause of the bill, as it focuses exclusively on maximizing disclosure, and the previous Access to Information Act's emphasis on secrecy goals is dropped. It calls for universal disclosure codes in both the public and private sectors, so that public moneys and health, safety, environment, and consumer matters can be regularly and instantaneously traced and made available on the Internet. What is then created is a legal, mandatory obligation for widespread proactive disclosure, something the current act lacks. Proactive disclosure will not then be the last resort. It will no longer be limited to a few administrative selective records, like some senior official's travel costs that are belatedly posted on government websites with insufficient information.
Third, the bill enables much broader private as well as public sector coverage. How else, these days, can you monitor public spending and safety issues? It is especially meant to cover private agencies receiving federal benefits where many of those organizations now carry out public functions. No public moneys would go to those without proactive disclosure service. No corporate third parties would have special veto powers to object to disclosures. The Prime Minister and ministers would be included, as well as Parliament.
Fourth, the bill enables a legal duty to document decisions and key actions in detail. That duty includes an organization keeping up-to-date records readily retrievable, or otherwise facing penalties for non-compliance.
Fifth, the bill calls for quicker access at low cost. Twenty days, not thirty days, should be the norm. And much tighter consultation and time-extension rules are incorporated, with enforceable powers in place to get prompt service.
Sixth, fewer and narrower restrictions to disclosure are put forward for private personal information, national security, trade secrets, unannounced monetary tax or share decisions, criminal law investigations, and certain cabinet records. Gone are many sweeping special-interest secrecy claims like policy advice, or claims that only some general administrative records can be made public.
Narrowing the application of exempt areas also means greatly reducing the time periods for protection and applying significant injury tests. For instance, pre-decision or cabinet records, which in my bill are no longer called confidences, would be available within three years. But cabinet could release records earlier. Where the records are a factual analysis or the data involve safety, health, environment, and consumer or civil liberties issues or where there is no significant injury from their release, cabinet records would be releasable.
Most Treasury Board submissions and cabinet agenda items would be automatically discloseable and would no longer be hidden for up to 20 years.
One other example is that exact public employee salaries, bonuses, and benefits would no longer be exempted as protected personal information.
I would caution the committee not to fall into the trap of letting exemptions be class exemptions or be broadly defined or without injury tests or have short-term time restrictions. Further, the way the public interest override provisions are written in Canadian legislation is not all that useful. It is much better to have a proactive disclosure system than to greatly reduce the number of existing exemptions.
As well, no other acts of Parliament should supersede the Public Right to Know Act. All acts currently with blanket confidentiality clauses would be reviewed.
Seventh, a new administration whose main goal is facilitating proactive disclosure practices is legally necessary. This means replacing Treasury Board and the access officialdom with a new arm's-length public access authority whose prime goal is to release information, not to tangle it up and deny records.
Eighth, a tougher Information Commissioner with full binding order powers and broader functions backed up by enforceable penalties is proposed.
Ninth, the bill broadens transparency by providing for open meeting requirements for federal boards and commissions.
Currently, some organizations have provisions for holding general annual public meetings--in the case of the National Capital Commission, for public attendance at board meetings--but the real business is behind closed doors and there is no provision for appealing the necessity of in camera meetings.
Tenth, the bill provides that there be a permanent parliamentary oversight to advance disclosure practices.
Eleventh, the bill also provides for a public and court review program for those members of the public with fewer resources who need to have the means and support to challenge secrecy practices. Court injunctions could be sought as part of those challenges.
Finally, an arm's-length international centre for freedom of information excellence is proposed so that once again Canada can assist and make a contribution to global transparency as well as to developing intergovernmental pro-disclosure agreements.
I've doggedly persisted in getting data under the existing access regime. I've taken secrecy claims to the courts and been widely consulted on access matters, so I can see, 25 years later, that Canada's access legislation is in need of a major overhaul and not simply slight adjustments.
To name a few, I have had problems in getting or been denied food, drug, and air safety materials; environmental materials on toxic sites, climate change and tar sands; and data on the sponsorship program and on other government programs of questionable spending.
So I sought legislative solutions for everybody to be able to quickly and easily have this data. Hence my development of a public right to know act for Parliament and public use and debate.
I would ask that the committee carefully examine and make use of my alternative progressive access bill. It differs from the Reid bill in some respects. This is my contribution to the next stage of Canada's transparency journal, and certainly I'll be open to questions on things like what a proactive disclosure code is, why you need to trace safety and the dollar issues, what's wrong with the public interest safety override, what's wrong with just administrative records going out, timing solutions, what's paralyzing the access system now, what's the order power, and so on and so forth.
I thank you.
