Information & Ethics Committee on May 4th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Ms. Thi Lac, please.

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

Good morning, Madam Minister. You came to talk to us about problems of political interference in access to information requests. But you did not say a lot about that.

First of all, I would like to ask you a question that seems vital to me. At the moment, Ms. Legault is acting commissioner. I would like to know why your government is taking so long to appoint a permanent Information Commissioner of Canada. You say that it is essential. I feel that, to make sure that things work properly, the first item of transparency that you could provide would be to appoint a permanent commissioner. Soon, the position will have been occupied on an acting basis for nine months.

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

We have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Pardon me, Madame.

I'll hear Ms. Davidson on a point of order.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Chair, I fail to see what this line of questioning has to do with the matter at hand that we're here to discuss today. I question the relevance, absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The issue that Madame Thi Lac has raised certainly has to do with the ability of the commissioner, whoever the commissioner is, to do his or her job by having a full mandate. I think it's understood that there are some restrictions. In view of the fact that it relates to the operations of access to information and our ability to deal with them, I'm going to allow the question. But the minister only knows what she knows.

Minister.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you know, I am not responsible for the appointment of the commissioner. So unfortunately, I can make no comment.

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

The Access to Information Act is more than 25 years old. Twenty-five years ago, I was not able to vote and my assistant was not even born. I feel that the act is out of date; if it were modernized, it would certainly allow savings in the costs of campaigns and action plans. Twenty-five years ago, in fact, there was no such thing as the Internet and current tools for communicating information did not exist. So modernizing the act would be one of the solutions.

Do you believe that modernizing the Access to Information Act would allow your government to put information online, as the United States and Australia have done, which has resulted in savings on action plans and advertising campaigns? In fact, information appeared online more easily in those countries when their legislation was overhauled.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

As I told you a little earlier, our remarks today did not deal with access to information specifically. They dealt with one way in which we communicated information to Canadians about the initiatives the government was providing in these difficult times, especially for workers who needed them and had the right to them. It has nothing to do with the Access to Information Act.

We believe that those workers need this information and have a right to it.

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

Madam Minister, you say that there is no report, but do you not feel that modernizing the act would allow the government to make action plans and distribute information differently? It would save on advertising campaigns, perhaps.

There is no getting away from the fact that the Internet is the main tool today. I feel that the government would have a different way of presenting things if the act were reformed and if the government had to comply with uniform rules.

At the moment, there are no uniform rules on this matter, given that the act has not been reformed for 25 years, when the Internet did not exist. Your government just does what it pleases.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

We believe that people have the right to know what the government is doing to help them. That is why we put the information on our website. There were also online advertisements in this component, exactly as the member suggested.

I do not understand how changing the Access to Information Act would help people to find out about new assistance programs.

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

Well, at the moment, under the rules, you have the discretionary power to make some information more available than other information. As I see it, if the act were modernized, there would be standard guidelines. At the moment, the act is so out of date. It makes no mention of the Internet or of information media like that. You provide the information you believe has to be provided.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Chair, we provided information about assistance programs for the unemployed and for other workers who had been adversely affected by the difficult times. It is difficult to get that message out. There have to be several ways of doing so, a website, for example, television and radio spots, and in all kinds of ways in the papers. We tried to make all the information accessible to as many people as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Madame Thi Lac, I understand where you were going. You need one more round to do it, though.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the minister for being here today.

I understand her point about access to information. It's one of those things that is, sadly, not followed up by the government, I can say that. Having been on the committee for the Accountability Act, I remember well, during those debates, that we were hoping to have reform to access to information, and the promise from the government was, well, we'll get there. But if we were to have that discussion, I would submit we're not there yet, and in fact the report card by the commissioner says that, and we're sitting on a committee where we're not even able to grade the access to information because it's a red alert. Alas, we're not going to have that conversation today because we're here to talk about the distribution of information to media upon request.

I just want to clarify your comments. Basically, if I can paraphrase your statement, you laid out what your responsibilities are as the department's minister, getting the message out to Canadians about your programs that you have been mandated to follow through the budget process, etc., and the fact of the matter is that you followed the rules that you've been given, and your staff, Mr. Sparrow, did the same. The qualifier was when the ask was put in, you didn't have all the relevant, cogent information, and when you did, you supplied that information. Is that correct?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Yes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay.

You also said that this is the way we do things, right? These are the rules, and when there's a media request put in to anyone in the department, that's what we do. We put it up to the minister's office and someone—obviously, you can't deal with all the media requests; we hire staff to do those things. Mr. Sparrow was charged with that job, so he fulfilled his duty to do so. So you would suggest that in fact there was no problem in terms of how things were done.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Everything was done in accordance with the Government of Canada's communications policy.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay.

Who formulates the Government of Canada's communications policy? Where does that come from?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

That we receive. It is given to all ministers.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

From whom? Is it a political decision or is it something that—

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I'm sorry, I don't know who wrote it. I know that that is the Government of Canada policy. It came into effect August 1, 2006.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I say that, Minister, because actually I didn't know the process until you laid it out today. I find it disturbing—and I think Canadians would find it unusual—that every single media request that goes in with that kind of wide berth of saying anything that might have implications for the ministry has to go through the minister's office.

Would you not submit that public servants would be able to answer a question as simple as how much money is being spent for an advertising campaign?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Most of the time they do.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Why does it have to go to your office to be—how should I put it—cleared?