Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay, $11 million. So two organizations or two individuals are responsible for roughly $3 million to $4 million of the cost of the commissioner's office to investigate these complaints? That's a rough calculation.

[Robert Marleau]

That's one way of querying it. Depending on the nature of the complaint, depending on the breadth and that sort of thing, it's hard to put a per complaint cost.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It just seems the whole rest of the world is 75% and then two individuals or two organizations are 25%. They're generating a lot of work for the commissioner and your staff.

[Robert Marleau]

I felt that was an issue I had to address as commissioner. You may remember I brought in triage of cases. A lot of these users were very upset. I just felt the little old lady from Moose Jaw using the act for the first time needed as equal access as those who were bombarding--

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I couldn't agree with you more. As you know, my concern has always been--going back to the months when we had our discussions--that a small group of individuals or organizations are using the system excessively at virtually no cost, but at great cost to the taxpayers.

I think you told us that the cost of complying with an access to information request was roughly $1,500 per access. Here you've got two individuals or organizations--probably a media organization is one of them--generating thousands of information requests that cost the government and the taxpayers of Canada and all those hardworking Canadians at least $1,500 to respond to. When they don't like the amount of time it's taking to get them that information, they put a complaint into the commissioner's office and that generates maybe another $3 million to $4 million worth of cost to the taxpayers.

Do you think there's any argument there for attaching a reasonable cost to a business organization, like a media organization or a data collector, like a government relations firm or a law firm, to supplying that information they're going to resell to their customers?

[Robert Marleau]

There are jurisdictions that do that, but it doesn't work very effectively, because there are so many ways to get around it. However, three of my recommendations to the committee, which you've supported, go to address some of those complexities or issues.

One is giving discretion to the commissioner to investigate. So when I see or deem a use abusive, I can decline to investigate.

The other is to grant departments--and for this I'm not very popular among, particularly, those users--specific extensions for multiple submissions of requests. Where a department is being targeted by a user with a large number of requests, which you know they can't meet within 30 days because of the sheer volume, they should be able to consult with me and ask what a reasonable amount of time to fix that is. If they get agreement from my office, they can go ahead. Now, the requester is not very happy, but I think there's a reasonableness there that has to be brought into play.

The discretion of the commissioner, if you put those together, would I think bring some of these issues, through dialogue and discourse--I'm not saying an absolute refusal--with some of these users who.... I can't impute a motive, good or bad, financial or otherwise.

You may remember this chart I circulated to the committee.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

They're both business organizations.

[Robert Marleau]

The red one is a publicly admitted data broker, and red means that he opposed every recommendation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

They are for-profit organizations, aren't they?

Thank you, Commissioner. I thank you again for your service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Colleagues, I've been around for a long time, and I want to make a suggestion.

I think this committee has done good work, and I think we still have an opportunity to build on what we've done. I'm going to suggest, Mr. Martin, if it's okay with you, that we stand your proposed motion and extend an invitation to the Minister of Justice to come back to our committee so we can discuss this further. I think we've heard one side. But the minister may want to clarify or deal with some of the reaction to his report. That would maybe give us a better basis on which to discuss the conclusions of this committee. I'm pretty sure that a motion of that nature could be discussed for an awfully long time, and I'm not sure it's a good use of our time.

The reason I also make it is that I was informed this morning that on November 5, which is a week from today, the Privacy Commissioner, or the deputy, were to appear on the quick fix report on privacy. They are not going to be in the country. We have a full meeting open, and we could request that a week from now. The minister might give us an opportunity to speak with him about this report in a week. That is my suggestion to the committee, but I'm open to input from the members.

We'll have Mr. Dechert, and then Mr. Martin.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, could I suggest that the committee ask the minister if he would be interested in making a further written response to the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We certainly can do that. It depends on what the wish of the committee is. Certainly another option would be to simply exchange written correspondence. The members may have some thoughts on that.

Go ahead, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Personally, I don't think Mr. Dechert's recommendation would be very fruitful. They gave this letter a lot of thought. I think every word and every phrase was very carefully chosen and probably agonized over, to tell you the truth, to minimize what constitutes an insult to the committee or to couch it in terms that we would find difficult condemning them for. But condemn them we should.

I see the reasoning in your perhaps not dealing with my motion today, because we've seen Conservatives filibuster committees and it's just an exercise in frustration, but so is bringing the minister before this committee.

I remember we did that with the Liberal justice minister after he completely shafted this committee. Let's just be realistic here. We had a firm commitment from that minister and that government that, yes, they were going to revamp the Access to Information Act and that he would in fact table legislation. Instead of tabling legislation, he tabled yet another discussion paper and recommended that this committee consult further.

We don't need any more consultation on this. Everybody knows what needs to be done. For 15 years they've known what changes need to take place. It's stalling, it's ragging the puck, it's a delaying tactic, it's trying to exhaust the energies of this committee so you'll simply drop it, put it on the too-hard-to-do pile, and move on to something nicer and more satisfying to deal with.

You can put my motion on hold, if you like. Well, I'm not sure. I think I have the right to insist that it be dealt with today, and I might still do that, but I can advise you that you are setting yourself up for a whole lot of hurt if you think you're going to get any satisfaction from dragging the minister in here. I think the time has come to express the profound frustration and disappointment of this committee in the House of Commons, in Parliament, and tell the world that you're disappointed in this minister and this government's unwillingness to live up to their campaign promises to the people of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I concur with the feelings and the sentiments of Mr. Martin, but I also note that this committee spent a great deal of time working on this particular report—10 sessions, 7 sessions with witnesses—so that our recommendations would be well-founded and made on strong, firm foundations. The former commissioner was quite right when he said the response was cavalier. It was cavalier in style, but I also concur that it was carefully thought through and it was dismissive with purpose.

I like Mr. Dechert's suggestion that we need something further in writing. There were 12 specific recommendations, and we spent a great deal of time on every single one of those. We have 11 parliamentarians on this committee, representing all parties from virtually every region of the country. We virtually had consensus on all of these very important points, and to be dismissed out of hand is disturbing and it fundamentally undermines the democracy of our country and its transparency.

We've waited this long, and November 5 is a week from now. I would in fact be encouraged if the minister, if he were to appear, would take Mr. Dechert's suggestion that, prior to that, we be provided with something on paper addressing each of those 12 recommendations and why in each case he has said no. He has said no to this committee 12 times, so why has he said no to each one of those? He may have very good reasons, but we'd like to hear them.

I think the combined suggestions of Mr. Szabo that he appear and the suggestion of Mr. Dechert that he provide us with something on paper would serve this committee well. I'm willing to be patient for another week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes, Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

This is simply to clarify, so that Mr. Wrzesnewskyj understands what my suggestion was. It was simply that I think it would be reasonable for this committee to make a request to the minister to ask him if he would care to make a further written response to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Sure. I understood that as well.

Because we have 10 minutes, I think we are at the point at which we really want to get some direction for the committee on whether we're going to make this motion or whether there seems to be a consensus as to an invitation for a further written response or an invitation to appear.

Mr. Poilievre is going to speak on behalf of the Conservatives.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I have to confess, I am a little bit perplexed as to where we are now in the proceedings. Are we continuing to question a witness, or are we discussing...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The list of questioners for the witness ran out; there was nobody else. Then I moved on.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, with respect--and you can check the transcript--I specifically asked you if we were going to continue questioning Mr. Marleau and you said, “Yes, but I just want to clarify what we were intending to do with the motion first.” I challenge you to check the transcript on that. You were very clear on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

We are, but there was nobody on the list.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

That's not true. I indicated I wanted to be on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay, I hear you. Let's just--

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Could somebody read the transcript--