Information & Ethics Committee on April 29th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Unfortunately, we're...

We'll be fair. We'll share. We'll get around to you again, though.

Ms. Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good morning, Ms. Legault. I wish to thank you for being with us once again.

During the last meeting, you mentioned that, compared with Canada, Australia and the United States were of the avant-garde. You told us that you would be able to inform us of the progress made during today's meeting, and you held your promise. Many thanks for that.

You talked about the American system. At the beginning of your presentation, I asked myself if this progress was due to the fact that the American system was different from ours. You however well indicated that it is thanks to their political will that the Americans were able to put in place such a system.

In order to express its political good will, should the federal government not, as a first move, appoint a full-time commissioner rather than maintaining this position as an interim appointment? This would confirm that it is a key position within the government.

[Suzanne Legault]

Mr. Chairman, I think this question should be put to someone else.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

For my part, I believe it is one of the first moves that should be made. It would be simple. The conservatives often tell us that everything is long and complex and requires thought.

Could you remind us yet again of how long you have been filling this interim position?

[Suzanne Legault]

Since July 1^st, 2009.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Since then, invitations to tender must certainly have been launched... Were this vacancy to be filled, it would show good will.

We know that the Access to Information Act has been in place for 25 years. At the time, Mr. Plamondon was making his entrance here, in the House of Commons, as an MP. Twenty-five years ago, I did not have the right to vote, and my assistant was not yet born. That gives you an idea of the situation: this legislation should perhaps be re-examined. Changes have been made, but very few compared to what we would like to see and what should be done. As you say, changes come quickly, and we are put on the sidelines.

You have also stated recently that your next report will deal with political interference. If you believe it wise to table such a report, is it because you have concerns in this area in particular?

[Suzanne Legault]

Mr. Chairman, last summer, when I became interim commissioner, I published a statement indicating my plan with regard to systemic investigations.

Through these systemic investigations, I was to deal more specifically with the matter of consultations and extensions granted by various departments, because I was of the belief that the performance report cards were insufficient with regard to providing us with all of the necessary information.

Subsequently, as you know, several allegations of political interference landed on my desk; I received several complaints. Indeed, I have three specific inquiries under way. Given that there were several allegations in this area, I decided to include this under my systemic investigation that I will be launching anytime now. In essence, I will have to consult the same documents in order to study this matter. The documentary evidence will be the same, but given that I only have enough resources for one investigation, I am including this under the same umbrella.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

We talked about the United States and Australia. You however further excited my interest when you talked about Quebec's Act on Access to Documents Held by Public Bodies and the Protection of Personal Information. You are aware that we are MPs who represent the Quebec nation.

I would like to know if you are of the belief that the Canadian government should follow the example of the Quebec government. What advantages would this provide? What regulations, what act should be amended so as to maximize the workings of the federal system? Because things are working well in Quebec, and you are perhaps of the belief that the federal government should follow this example in particular.

[Suzanne Legault]

Yes, indeed, the Quebec regulations and... In fact, the Quebec legislation is more recent than Canada's. It better satisfies international requirements with regard to access to information. And the regulations list several elements that must be disclosed by Quebec institutions.

With regard to these requirements, one must be careful. Indeed, at the federal government level, various things must be disclosed proactively at the administrative level, which is quite compulsory and which is outlined in Treasury Board policies. Once must really compare the two in order to determine if there truly is a need to amend the legislation in order to ensure the same level of disclosure. I do not have this information, I do not know exactly what is disclosed at the federal level at the present time, administratively speaking, and I do not know what the Quebec regulations provide for.

There is a major distinction: in Quebec, these regulations include the obligation to disclose the access requests that are made. That does not exist at the federal level, nor elsewhere in Canada; it does, however, exist in Mexico, in Great Britain, to my knowledge, and it is outlined in legislation.

In my opinion, this would be excellent. Two departments do this voluntarily: the Department of National Defence and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. And, as of tomorrow, I believe that there will also be my office.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Siksay, please.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner.

This is a very helpful start to our deliberations. I appreciate that you've done it, even though you don't have a research mandate. It's very helpful for us, and I hear your comment.

Commissioner, I want to ask about the terminology we use starting at a very basic level. We've been using the term “proactive disclosure”, but I have a feeling, just from the very preliminary look that I've had, that other jurisdictions in other places use different language to describe the same kinds of issues. I know that the Choosing Transparency report in Quebec talked about automatic publication as kind of an overarching term.

Can you say something about the kinds of terminology that are used and what the differences are in that?

[Suzanne Legault]

I think one of the key things to understand, at the federal level particularly, is that the term “proactive disclosure” in the federal government—and I know because I've been told this specifically by the Secretary of the Treasury Board—means what is mandatory disclosure, what you find on federal department websites, which includes travel expenses, hospitality, contracts, and so on. That's what the federal government understands as proactive disclosure. It doesn't understand it in the same context that I think this committee is looking at it--generally, in terms of what information we voluntarily disclose as institutions to the public. That's one distinction in terms of proactive disclosure.

Open government is different from proactive disclosure, in my view. It's a form of proactive disclosure, but open government means that you don't only disclose information, but you disclose it in a format that can be disaggregated, as data that can be reused, and people can use different technological applications to analyze this information.

The third concept that I would say is fundamental to open government is that it entails a collaboration with the citizens so that it's an exchange of information based on the data. The idea is to tap into the knowledge, creativity, and innovation of citizens to improve what the government is doing. So it's very much using the new technology such as social media and so on to interact with citizens to improve policies, programs, and service delivery. That's what I understand in terms of open government.

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

Do other jurisdictions, like the United States, Australia, and Britain, use different terminology? The Americans obviously are using open government as a key concept. Do you know what terminology the U.K. and Australia are using?

[Suzanne Legault]

They're using “smarter government” in the U.K. Aside from what I've just said, I'm not very familiar--

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

So “smarter government” would connect with their government efficiency key principle in terms of why they're looking at this.

[Suzanne Legault]

Yes, and in fact, if the committee is interested, the Deloitte article I mentioned—I didn't bring it because it's in unilingual format—is a wonderful piece of work that goes through what we used to have when we started public government and what the situation is now. They call it the legacy, the learning, and the leading. They have this concept of where we should be going in terms of using technology to engage with our citizens. It's a really well done piece of work. If the committee has the resources to translate it, and if it's available, I think it would be a seminal piece for the committee to look at.

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

It would be helpful to at least have the reference to where we could track it down.

You said in your opening statement that this proactive disclosure consideration needed to look at specific Canadian requirements. The one you explicitly laid out was official bilingualism. Could you say a bit more about that, and can you identify any other unique Canadian requirements?

[Suzanne Legault]

That's the one that really distinguishes us from the Australians, the Americans, and the British in terms of their initiatives. We have our own security policies in the government. We have our own copyright issues. We have our own data sets of information already, and our citizens may be interested in different sets of information. The main characteristics of the other jurisdictions are that they consulted the population and did thorough reviews before coming out with their strategies.

It is not a simple matter. It really needs to involve technology experts. You need to have security experts, because once you start having an open forum for discussion, it opens up security issues for institutions to consider. Official languages are obviously an issue for us in terms of what we publish.

So it's not a simple task to determine what's best for Canada in terms of open government, how we go about it, and the various considerations we have to keep in mind. Legal, security, privacy, confidentiality, official languages, and copyright issues are the ones that come to my mind. But we shouldn't look at those as being impediments to moving forward. I think we have to be mindful that they're there, but it does require considered study by leading experts. It really does.

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

Do you see our jurisdictional structure in Canada as more problematic than those in other jurisdictions, or is it just different?

[Suzanne Legault]

It is different, and each of the other jurisdictions has interesting lessons to learn from us. The U.K. and Australia are Westminster models, so they have perhaps similar issues with cabinet confidences and other types of information. Parliamentary privilege issues would be very similar. They have crown copyright issues.

The Americans are our trading partners, so that's a different consideration. Do we want our researchers, our academics, our interpreters to have less access to data and less access to potential data sets that will lead them to create innovations in Canada versus the U.S.? These are the types of things we should look into. But we have to develop what's good for us and look at and perhaps benefit from what's going on in the provinces.

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

The question of records—

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm sorry, Mr. Siksay, but we'll be back to you.

Mr. Poilievre, you're next, please.

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

I'd like our exchange to be very mechanical and mechanically focused on what proactive disclosure means.

If I am a researcher or an investigative journalist and am seeking information from a government of Canada that under this scenario would have instilled the same kind of proactive disclosure as President Obama pronounced upon in the days following his inauguration, what would be different for me?

[Suzanne Legault]

For instance, in relation to the stimulus spending, the difference would be, say, that if you really wanted to conduct your own analysis of the spending, you would have access to the data. You wouldn't have access simply to knowing that the government spent so much money on this project at this certain place and have a document that states that. What you would have is all of the data, which you could then manipulate to see whether or not—