Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
As director of the access to information and privacy protection division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, I am the delegated authority for administering the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act, and all related Treasury Board policies. In this capacity, I am pleased to appear before you today.
At the outset, I would like to assure the committee that in accordance with the principles of openness, accountability, and transparency, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is committed to respecting the Privacy Act and applicants' rights of access to information. In fact, DFAIT follows Treasury Board Secretariat's best practices in its administration of the acts. For example, the access to information coordinator, which is the position that I occupy as director, has full authority delegated by the head of the institution for the administration of the acts. My position is at most two positions removed from the deputy head in our organizational structure. My department has sound practices for the processing of all access to information requests. There is a collaborative approach that exists between my ATIP office, the offices of the heads and deputy heads of the institution, our communications branches, our parliamentary affairs people, and our program officials.
A process is in place to notify officials of the imminent disclosure of records when the processing of a request is in its final stages. This is DFAIT'S COMM Alert process, which allows senior department officials, including the minister's staff, to prepare required communication products such as media lines and question period notes. This is done 72 hours prior to the release of records under the act. These written COMM Alert procedures are established across the department, including in the minister's offices. The main principles of the ATIP COMM Alert process are as follows:
It allows the department to prepare in case questions arise from releases under the Access to Information Act. It is not an approval process of packages to be released by the minister's office.
The identity of applicants is never shared outside my ATIP office, and this COMM Alert process does not delay releases. In fact, it is departmental policy not to provide the minister's office a 72-hour timeframe when the legislative due date cannot permit it.
To ensure that the ATIP process is well understood, and that there is a culture of ATIP commitment across the department, my office introduced additional measures in the fall of 2008. For example, DFAIT implemented a new streamlined ATIP tasking process across the department with single gateways into each branch and bureau, along with dedicated ATIP liaison officers. A department-wide ATIP awareness program was implemented to ensure that officials across the department understand their ATIP roles and responsibilities.
Monthly ATIP performance reports to senior management have been introduced, and these reports have already improved turnaround times from program areas.
The department also introduced an ATIP professional development program to address recruitment, retention, and succession-planning issues. This program is already demonstrating its key benefits.
Nonetheless, it is true that DFAIT has been carrying forward from year to year a growing backlog of ATIP requests that are beyond the legislative timeframes. This is something of concern not only to the Information Commissioner, but also to the department and the minister. Senior departmental officials are reviewing the allocation of resources at the minister's request with the purpose of clearing this ATIP backlog and building a greater capacity to meet Canadians' requests.
As a final remark, I would like to reiterate that DFAIT is committed to responding to access-to-information requests and to helping applicants to exercise their rights under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.
Thank you.