Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 24th, 2009

[Peter Bruce]

I can't answer that specific question right now. Could we get back to the committee with the answer to that?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I want to come back to the whole question of section 6.2.1. Since this policy was promulgated, have there been any reports from senior information management officials about difficulties, gaps, or compliance issues that have come to the chief information officer?

[Peter Bruce]

We have a governance structure that gets many of these senior management officials together about every two months to discuss some of the key issues. It's our committee on information management in business. It also combines senior access to information officials to reinforce that linkage between information management and access to information. We haven't had anybody formally write us a letter saying that since our policy came into effect in June 2009 they've seen this, but we do discuss collectively some of the challenges and issues that result from the implementation of this policy.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Does section 6.2.1 envisage a specific reporting, or is it informal? You described it as an informal discussion. Do you envisage a formal kind of reporting of those problems that is documented and accessible to the public?

[Peter Bruce]

I think the notification could be in either form, and sometimes if it's a broad issue we might discuss it. There are minutes of those committee meetings, so the types of issues we're discussing are documented through those. If it were a specific issue in a particular department that the IM senior official wanted to raise, these people in particular, I would expect, would do that in a well-documented manner.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

There's no specific process outlined at this point to do that.

[Peter Bruce]

No.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I wanted to come to the whole issue of the duty to document, which is a phrase we often hear. When this committee was doing its study of the Access to Information Act and reform, it was raised by a number of witnesses. I noticed that we did invite the archivist and librarian to appear on this issue, but that invitation was declined.

Mr. Rimmer, maybe you can help me about how the Library and Archives of Canada Act frames the whole issue, how it understands the concept of duty to document.

[Douglas Rimmer]

I'm just scanning my memory of the Library and Archives of Canada Act.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Does it use that phrase, “duty to document”? Is that terminology there?

[Douglas Rimmer]

I do not believe that phrase is found within our act. Certainly our act speaks to government records. It assumes government records exist, but it does not specifically reference the requirement to create them, that I can recall.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

It doesn't deal specifically with the whole issue of requiring government to document its activities.

[Douglas Rimmer]

Not in the Library and Archives of Canada Act. Both the policy on information management and the directive we're speaking of here today assert the requirement for government departments to document their business and decision-making processes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Does the librarian and archivist have an opinion on whether there should be a legislative requirement to document?

[Douglas Rimmer]

There are officials within the government who are responsible for the legislative framework and for advising ministers on legislation, and ministers are ultimately responsible for deciding what the legislative framework is. What I can tell you is that within the two instruments we're dealing with today we see those concepts contained within the policy and the directive.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Neither of those are legislative requirements.

[Douglas Rimmer]

They're not acts, that's right.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Does the librarian and archivist have an opinion as to whether or not, if there were to be a legislative duty to document, that should be in the Library and Archives of Canada Act or in the Access to Information Act? Is there an opinion on where that would be best located?

[Douglas Rimmer]

As I said, there are other officials in the Government of Canada who are responsible for formulating legislative options and advising ministers in that regard. That's not my specific responsibility. We're really here today to focus on these instruments for which we are responsible.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Do you know if the librarian and archivist has reviewed the--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'll put you on for another round, just to keep harmony here.

Madam Freeman, s'il vous plaît.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Szabo.

I have three brief questions. First, I would like to know when you could table in committee those two documents that you discussed with my colleague earlier.

[Peter Bruce]

Those documents exist. So we should be able to provide them to you soon.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Today?

[Peter Bruce]

What are the typical requirements? One or two weeks?