Thank you very much for the opportunity to come and comment on this very important piece of legislation.
The history of the Canadian Bar Association's involvement with the legislation really goes back and predates the legislation itself. In 1979 the Canadian Bar Association actually passed a model bill related to access to information and privacy; that model bill had very strong similarities to what became the Access to Information Act and our federal Privacy Act.
In 1981 the Canadian Bar Association, with a special task force on access to information law and privacy, made a submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, and then subsequently made further submissions in 1986 as the legislation was in its infancy. In 1986 the CBA national council also passed a resolution endorsing the Access to Information Act.
We're here because we've been invited to make comments on the quick fixes, as Mr. Szabo just characterized them, and we do have comments on all of those quick fixes. We will also raise two other issues that we'd like to bring to the committee's attention.
You'll find that all these are basically consistent with everything the Canadian Bar Association has said about the Access to Information Act, and having re-read this morning the documents produced in the early 1980s, I found it interesting that a number of the issues pointed out at that time as being important for consideration still remain important considerations.
My colleague Priscilla is going to talk about the recommendations, or at least our responses to the so-called quick fixes, but first I'd like to bring to the committee's attention a topic that has been mentioned by previous witnesses but probably not discussed in great detail: the system that was known as CAIRS. It was a computerized system for the coordination of Access to Information Act requests. It had been in place for some time, but was discontinued by the Privy Council in May of 2008. It was a centralized system into which all Access to Information Act requests were entered, ostensibly for the management of those requests across the government.
It was discontinued in May of 2008 primarily because there was a perception of what's been called amber lighting, or red alert, so that politically sensitive Access to Information Act requests would go to the attention of the appropriate people in ministers' offices or to those on their communications staff.
The CBA's national privacy and access law section has considered the fact that it was discontinued, and has also carefully considered the fact that during the time it was in place, the system itself was subject to Access to Information Act requests. It was used by journalists and others with a strong interest in Access to Information Act issues in order to keep track of those issues and essentially be able to tell how the act itself was working and what sorts of requests were going through. It was an important insight into what was happening inside government.
The national privacy and access law section of the CBA thinks the system should be restored, and that it should in fact be restored in a wider way that would make all the information on it publicly accessible, other than information that would disclose sensitive personal information about requesters or information about individuals whose information is being requested.
This would be consistent with the Canadian Bar Association's view that the Access to Information Act, which has been characterized as quasi-constitutional by many courts and in a number of court cases, is a critical tool in making sure that our form of Canadian responsible government maintains the characteristic of being transparent and open to everybody. It increases accountability, and the restoration and expansion of this CAIRS system would go a long way towards doing that.
The second issue I'd like to touch on has only been touched on in a glancing way by some of the witnesses before this committee. It's the question of solicitor-client privilege. The Canadian Bar Association has obviously, and for quite some time, taken a very strong and consistent position in protection of solicitor-client privilege.
We would like to ask this committee, although it's not contained in any of the quick fixes, that if any of the suggestions coming out of this committee in its final report touch upon the important matter of solicitor-client privilege, it be done very carefully and in consideration of all the issues that this committee has already dealt with on that topic, and also consistent with the very high value placed on solicitor-client privilege in our legal and constitutional system.
Again, thank you very much for this opportunity. I'll hand it over to my colleague Priscilla.