Evidence of meeting #21 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I have not broken them down that way, per institution.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
They're not individual taxpayers looking for their own personal information from the government, by the sounds of it.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
There would be some. Some would be media. Some would be parliamentarians. Some would be lawyers. I think it would cut across the gamut.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
What would a lawyer be looking for in terms of the cost of a tank in Afghanistan?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
A contract for his--
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So that would be a commercial venture, perhaps.
With respect to the one individual who has made 500 requests to the CBC, resulting in 400 complaints, would there be an argument for a differential fee for a large-volume user of the access to information system? I know the current fee is $5 per request, and it costs approximately $1,400 to respond to each of those requests. Can a valid argument be made that perhaps that one individual should pay more than $5 if the number of requests exceeds, say, 25 or 50 in any given year?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
There's an argument to be made. I'd like to have a little debate offline with you on whether it's valid, but my recommendation number 12, which would allow time extensions for multiple and simultaneous requests by single requesters, would go a long way to cure that in terms of the pressure on the agency and the number of complaints that result, as well as giving discretion to the commissioner on whether to investigate or not.
In Ontario, a limit has been imposed on the number of complaints any one individual can hold with the commissioner. The commissioner has that discretion.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So there should be some limitation on the volume of complaints in your view, or at least—
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I hesitate—
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
—that's one way of getting it. The other way to get it would be to tell people to make as many as they wish, but the more they ask for, the more component of cost-recovery there will be built into the fee structure. That's another way of maybe deterring multiple requests.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You see, it's difficult for me to be in a position to judge the motive. It could be very valid. So that's why I think having the discretion would give me the opportunity to discuss it with the complainant requester and come to a conclusion as to the merits of the situation.
It could be a life-and-death situation related to immigration or otherwise, and they have no choice but to ask for it.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Fair enough, but if you're making 400 or 500, it's probably isn't.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Probably isn't, but again....
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Right. Okay, I appreciate your comments.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Are we okay? Okay.
Commissioner, the concern of this committee for some time, with regard to both privacy and access areas, has been the human resources dilemma. You're making progress on the human resources problem, but you still have contract people and we're still recruiting from within the public service, which means we're just passing our problems on to somebody else and we're not helping the whole situation.
Are there any discussions going on, coordinated by Treasury Board or whoever, to get us off this merry-go-round?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Well, in several reports, including the latest report card, I've made comment on that. I've made specific recommendations to Treasury Board about recruitment and training of ATIP coordinators in the community and to the school of public service management for constant training.
In an earlier report, when you were looking at the issue of human rights in Afghanistan, I made recommendations about a program at the University of Alberta, which is actually a certificate program for IAPP. There's no doubt that there has to be a major investment in resourcing this program properly.
What happened at Justice was, to get a five-star rating, the minister made a commitment and the deputy minister made a commitment to resource it adequately. What happens when that deputy minister leaves, I can almost predict to a T: over a couple of years it will simply regress. So yes, resourcing continues to be an issue.
As far as my office is concerned, I'm confident that by the end of next year we'll have reduced the backlog or the so-called inventory to a very manageable level. We'll have achieved our goal, and probably we'll be fully staffed and not dependent on contracts. But system-wide, it's a major issue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Well, this is something the Auditor General raised many years ago about the habits: it was easier to put a contract or a part-time person into a desk than it was a full-time person. The time differential was enormous.
All right, I thank you kindly for coming before us to answer the members' questions on important things. I hope we will resolve, through supplementary estimates (A), the panel issue we had. But do I understand that you have the means to be able to make it, from a cashflow point of view, until the supplementary estimates (A) are dealt with?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes, we will. We can get to June 30.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
As long as I know you're in business. All right, fair enough.
Thank you, kindly. The committee does have some other business it would like to transact, and it's going to have to go in camera. So thank you, and you're excused.
I'd like to suspend and ask all those who should not be in the room for the in camera session to leave as quickly as you can.
Thank you.
[Proceedings continue in camera]