Yes.
Evidence of meeting #8 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 system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 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 system.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
So we have an operating deficit for processing ATI requests of about $48 million, or 99%.
In the context of 30 million potential applicants—or less if you take away the people under the age of 18—when you expand the universe of potential ATIP users to 4 billion, what then becomes the operating cost or operating deficit of making an ATIP system work in this government?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Well, 4 billion times $1,425 would roughly be the answer to your specific question. But if we are to engage in a discourse or debate about the cost of ATI and the cost of expanding it to all users, what we have to do is to look at the international norm. In the United States of America, the FOI act is available to any citizen on the planet, including every Canadian, who can file an FOI request in Washington. All I'm proposing is that it be normalized here in line with what's being done in other jurisdictions, like the U.K. or some of our provinces.
I believe the net cost to you would be no different, or not much different. Those who are outside the country and currently accessing the act use a resident broker of some sort and get their information that way, so you've created a cottage industry to some degree. I'm not saying it's—
Conservative
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Well, it could be part of your economic stimulus package, but it's been there for 25 years and we've been criticized by the Commonwealth Secretary General for not normalizing our ATI access with that of other signatories at the UN and the Commonwealth, so that this information is free and accessible.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I wasn't meaning to suggest that 4 billion citizens of the world would rush out to file an ATIP request. However, we do have to consider the cost of potentially having new users, considering that 99% of the cost of an ATIP request is paid for by the taxpayer and not by the user. I'm wondering if you have any estimate of what the additional cost would be.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No, I have no specific estimate. My judgment of the situation is that it would be marginal. Those who are accessing the system from abroad now are accessing the system, and those who are not using it because they would have to pay a broker would be a very small percentage.
I think it's is a matter of principle in terms of what kind of image Canada wants to project concerning access to information, and compared with what's being done by other countries like Mexico or the U.S.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
If there were an influx of new ATIP requests, for example, by researchers and others around the world who have a vested interest in knowing or having information about the Canadian government, do you not worry that waiting times for Canadian requesters could increase?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Again, if the number of users increases marginally, it will have the same marginal impact on the system. Academics are the lowest users within Canada now, so I would assume that the academics internationally who might use the act would roughly represent the same percentage of use.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
But at our last meeting, you did agree that one of the reasons we have suffered from the backlogs, and one of the reasons the 30-day window is not being met as often as it once was, is the enormous expansion of the Access to Information Act introduced by the Conservative government under the Federal Accountability Act. That has generated more traffic and, therefore, more delays. Whenever you expand the scope of any kind of initiative, whether it be access to information or anything else, and you involve more people in its usage, you can add to the delays for people who are already using that system.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Mr. Chairman, I don't want to disagree with the honourable member, but my recollection of what I said was that the expansion of the statute to some 70-plus institutions has resulted in more requests and more complaints, but it's not the overwhelming cause. The increase is about 6% over six years, so there doesn't seem to be, year over year, a direct correlation with the number of requests filed.
There has been a large increase in the number of complaints. Instead of 35% over five or six years, the complaints are up 142%. Some of it, our data shows, is partially due to new institutions, apart from the CBC event of 2007-08. But they are not the cause of the increase in volume.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Marleau, I'd like to continue along the lines of what Mr. Poilievre was just questioning. I think what he seems to be pointing to is a cumbersome process that's not very cost-effective. However, I think the conclusion he's heading toward, that we should restrict access, is the opposite conclusion that I believe you and most Canadians would arrive at.
From all indications, we seem to have a mid-20th century process for access to information. Yet we have seen all these tremendous technological advances that indicate that we could provide, very efficiently and cost-effectively, transparency in a democracy. I believe you or someone else gave the example of New Zealand, where information is automatically posted. It's proactive as opposed to entailing that people fill out forms, have those forms processed, and then have clerks go through and search archives.
Wouldn't it make sense, in the 21st century, to not be using this arcane 20th century method? Not only is it cost-ineffective, but it also allows the potential for abuse. I'm not sure if there is a correlation, but in the last couple of years we've seen an increase, a very significant increase, in the number of complaints about the actual process.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I think there are two parts to your question. The first one looks at the principle of access to information, at the right of citizens to have access. The statute was never designed to be user pay. Indeed, it was designed to be “on top of”. The normal way to get information is simply to ask for it for free, since the taxpayer has already paid for the document that he or she may be looking for. And section 2 of the act, which was adopted in 1983, clearly says that the act is intended to complement and not replace existing procedures for access to government information. It is not intended to limit in any way the type of information that is normally available to the general public.
With regard to the concept of user pay, there was a $5 fee put in, and there were and are regulations to recover certain costs, certain fees. You have a basic right to so many free search hours and a basic right to so many free pages. After that, you pay certain fees.
If there's going to be debate on--
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Sir, I don't mean to be rude, but there is limited time.
What about the New Zealand example of posting information? Or take our court system; we have an open judicial system where procedures are public, but then all of those court procedures are also immediately posted. They're available. What about that proactive system? Have you any comments about that type of system?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The reference I made to New Zealand last week was that they even post cabinet confidences on the website, within months of decisions being made. The more proactive disclosure we have, such as exists in Mexico and Scotland, the better. I've said before that the next generation won't be wanting to file an access request; they're going to be wanting to find it on a website themselves.
So yes, there should be larger repositories of proactive disclosures.
Liberal
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I'll defer to my colleague on that. She attended a conference where the New Zealand commissioner made a presentation. I think she'll be able to answer that more directly.
Andrea Neill Assistant Commissioner, Complaints Resolution and Compliance, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Thank you.
On the cabinet confidence issue, having those posted proactively certainly does make a difference in what you end up looking for under the act. We also have now the Quebec example, where, under regulation, certain types of information now have to be proactively disclosed.
The message is still that the more you put out there informally, the less you'll have to use the act.
Assistant Commissioner, Complaints Resolution and Compliance, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I was quite disturbed last week by some of your commentary--for instance, that you often find, within the access to information sections, a culture of non-disclosure. That almost seems Orwellian. We're calling it “access” to information, yet there's a culture of non-disclosure.
Another thing that truly disturbed me was the fact that requests from members of Parliament and the media would get amber lighting. We're elected to work on behalf of the public. We're members of Parliament. We are supposed to hold the executive branch, the government, to account. Do you mean to tell me that the government departments are deliberately slowing down information to members of Parliament so that they can't fulfill their duties to the public?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Let me restate that ever so slightly. The inquiry we did on the Canadian Newspaper Association's complaint about amber lighting found that the media was not the group of requesters worst affected by amber lighting; lawyers and parliamentarians were considerably ahead of them.
Amber lighting is defining a request as being sensitive, usually in order to prepare some kind of communications response when the information is put forward, or to specifically brief someone in the hierarchy, up to and including the minister, on the issue that's about to be disclosed. I have no problem with that activity. What I have a problem with is that any class of requester sees his timeliness rights under the statute violated by any such special process.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Wouldn't it almost make sense that the opposite be true? As elected members of Parliament, one of our functions is to hold the government to account. We have to be able to see things in a transparent manner. Wouldn't it actually make sense that they be fast-tracked as opposed to slowed down?
We already have an untenable situation, according to you, that timelines are not being met for the general public. I once experienced the frustration, in fact, of having to wait six months for an access to information request. Wouldn't it make sense for the opposite to be true, then? Shouldn't one of your recommendations be that MPs' requests get fast-tracked?
