Evidence of meeting #34 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 response.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
I think it was expanded to well over 80 new institutions. I forget the exact number, I'm sorry. I'm a little rusty on that right now; I usually like to spit those statistics out pretty accurately. But more than 80 were added, in terms of the breadth.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
I have somewhere in the high 60s, but even so, it's remarkable nonetheless.
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
Among those 60-some there are some crown corporations with subsidiaries, so in fact the individual count is larger than is stated in the annex of the statute.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
So we can agree that there was a substantial increase in the number of institutions that were added to the Access to Information Act by the Federal Accountability Act.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Right.
Are you aware of how many requests were processed last year compared with that magic year 2005-06--let's say the difference between the number of requests processed annually in 2004-05 and in 2007-08.
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
I didn't come prepared for those kinds of question. I came for the government response and the 12 recommendations in your report.
I will go from memory. I recall that it has been growing at a percentage rate of about 6% per year. But the complaints are up much further, in the 80% range. The Office of the Information Commissioner provides you with those statistics. They're published in Info Source, but the percentages are not there.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
What I'm worried about is that the opposition claims that more information is censored when documents are released. Maybe because of the time limitations, I'll just ask, is it not true that there is no statistical data to support this conclusion?
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
There is no statistical data that shows this. It would be possible to gather it through the complaints system in the Office of the Information Commissioner, but that's a very hard statistic to produce as a credible statistic: a one-line deletion can be just as important in substance as a 14-page deletion.
I cannot say, and I think I've said this before to the committee, that in my two years there I found a systematic secrecy or conspiracy of secrecy that was growing or diminishing. As a matter of fact, I challenged my predecessor's view about a culture of secrecy. What we have—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
What we have is a challenged bureaucracy, diminished resources, and what I once called a “fog” over the information. I think today I'd say there's a fog of apathy that is very concerning. So it's not a question that there's growth in--
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
The fog of secrecy seems to be limited to one cloud hanging over some of these opposition claims.
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
Well, I said it was a fog over the information, which is different from “a fog of secrecy”. I didn't use those words. But the fog of apathy demonstrated in part in the response from the minister is what concerns me.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Commissioner, since 1983, how many commissioners have there been?
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
You were the fourth, but were you the first to leave in frustration?
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I can't speak for my predecessors, but I can tell you that I did not leave in frustration.
I made two commitments to this committee on my appointment. One, I would have a close look at the management practices, making sure that Canadians were getting value for money, and that I had a bias against the status quo. I spent the first year doing that.
The second year I decided that, since the committee had made it a priority, I would invest in the legislative proposals from my perspective in terms of what could be done in the short term. I also wanted to rejuvenate the report cards so they'd have a larger impact.
So I left quite satisfied in the short-term objectives I had fixed.
John Grace, I think, was a great commissioner, and he's not here to confirm this, but we had lunch early on and he basically told me that what I would find most challenging was to keep up my optimism over a period of seven years. I won't say he left frustrated, because I think he had considerable impact.
In these ombudsman jobs you expect a certain amount of frustration. It comes with the territory. You don't have full control. You can only influence; you can push. You can rip your shirt off on Sparks Street once a week, but that's not very effective. So you hope that by being tenacious you'll make a difference.
I left quite satisfied. I'll let you decide whether I made a difference or not, but I didn't leave in frustration, sir.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
You've noted that there has been an evolution when it comes to access to information. I guess people using the system have been frustrated over the years and it has gotten worse. As opposed to bureaucratic delays and sometimes the appearance of a maze, people have given up on the system. You referenced that journalists have given up, and I've referenced that parliamentarians have given up on using the system. So as opposed to just frustration, that access to information door seems to have been closed. We're virtually facing a wall.
It's nice to play pretend while we've now allowed access to many more institutions, but when that access is just theoretical, when you cannot in fact access and you're facing a wall, then you've not actually provided anything.
What I find fascinating is that, in the past election, the Conservative Party election platform, “Stand up for Canada”, pledged that cabinet confidences would not be excluded from the commissioner's review. Obviously that hasn't happened. That's another disturbing development where a commitment made has not been kept.
We've seen the frustration level progress to people throwing up their hands and saying they can't use the system. It used to be 30- to 60-day periods. We're up to 250-day periods, and there's a new twist to this. Things are sent by the departments for so-called PCO consultations, and the PCO has found another mechanism that they're utilizing these days. They send out notes stating the following:
We are aware that a certain time has passed since your request was originally received and we sincerely apologize for the delay. In an attempt to clear out our heavy backlog situation, please complete the following. Do you still require that information, yes or no?
So they delay and delay, way beyond what is allowable, and then send out these notes asking if you're still interested. Often information is of a timely matter.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
What do you think of these situations, especially when you're dealing with requests such as requests to the Department of Foreign Affairs, information on detainee transfers, which have been delayed I guess about 350 days, or acquisition of Chinook helicopters at huge expense to the taxpayers, another 350-day delay?
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
As an Individual
Previous commissioners and my two annual reports have all commented on the situation you raise. Consultations with PCO, Foreign Affairs, were identified in the last set of report cards as being a systemic problem, a systemic issue.
I recognize that horizontal government and horizontal issues, the complexity of government, do require intergovernmental consultations. Bad enough that we have a three-tiered system among federal, provincial, and municipal governments. If you ask the questions at three levels, you get three different answers on the same subject. I've experienced that myself. You got the whole story, but you got it partly from each level.
It is unacceptable that consultations delay the legislative time of 30 or 60 days, with consultations included. The law is the law. When you get stopped by a police officer and he says, “You were going over the 30-mile limit”, and you say,“But I was only going 55 miles an hour and, really, I need to go 85 to get there on time”.... It's ridiculous. The law is the law. It says 30 days and they're violating the law.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
