Evidence of meeting #35 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was foreign.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you very much, Dr. Bennett.
We're now going to move to Madame Thi Lac for seven minutes.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Good afternoon, ladies, good afternoon, sir. Thank you for being here today.
My first question is related to your remarks, Mr. Cossette. You mentioned an increase in access to information requests in the last four years.
Can you also confirm that, for the period from 2007 to 2008, the number of complaints about delays has doubled as well?
4 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
I cannot confirm those numbers for you. I could provide you with them in writing, in the next few days, of course.
I feel that the two go hand in hand. When requests take too long to process, the number of complaints goes up as a result.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
You said that processing time used to be 110 days. You have now reduced that to about 60 days, and less than 5% of requests have any delay in processing at all.
On average, how many days does it take to process requests in the backlog?
4 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
That is difficult to say, in that requests are not the same. They come from different sources, they ask different questions and they do not always involve the same departments. So it is difficult to identify a general trend that would apply to all requests.
Once again, if you want those detailed figures, we can provide them to you in writing.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
There is a current feeling that Quebeckers and Canadians are raising questions about the transparency of our institutions. I actually think that delays in processing access to information requests are making that feeling worse.
I would like to add something to what Dr. Bennett said a little earlier. Putting more of these documents online would help to reduce the number of access to information requests. Though there may be additional translation costs, the fact that people can look things up on a website more easily would reduce the number of access to information requests.
Would the translation costs not be balanced by savings in research? The fact that the documents are available to more people would significantly reduce the number of access to information requests.
4 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
At the moment, it is difficult to assess what the potential savings would be if applications were automatically put online. One thing is clear: the long-term trend would be to use the Internet and put requests online to make access to the documents easier.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Has your department already looked at that? You say that it is difficult to come up with those costs, but has your department looked into it at all?
4 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Our department has never studied that. At the moment, central agencies are looking towards normalizing, standardizing, the way in which requests could be put online for the Government of Canada as a whole. As far as I know, there has been no definitive decision on it.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
You say that, in the last four years, the number of access to information requests has gone up by over 70%. Quebeckers and Canadians are finding it increasingly difficult to get information directly. As members of Parliament, we are finding the same thing. When we ask the government questions, we sometimes have difficulty getting answers. So there is no other choice but to use the mechanism that we have through the Access to Information Act.
Greater openness and better distribution of information would help to stabilize the situation. What does the 78% increase in requests that you mentioned mean in concrete numbers? How many access to information requests do you get in a year, for example?
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
You want to know the number of pages?
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
No, I want to know the number of access to information requests.
4:05 p.m.
Director, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
At the moment, our department receives about 3,100 requests annually, if you add up all the various kinds of requests. They may be requests made under the Access to Information Act, requests under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or consultations.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay.
You are telling me that processing time is about 60 days at the moment. So you have actually almost reduced the time by half.
But what is your objective, how many days, for processing requests and sending out replies? Do you want to keep it at 60, or reduce it some more?
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
The 60-day processing time is for requests that need interdepartmental consultations. These are not requests that are directly related to the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade exclusively.
Our real objective, of course, would be to meet the timeframe set out in the act, which is 30 days.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
If the processing time for interdepartmental requests is 60 days, what is it for other requests?
4:05 p.m.
Roxanne Dubé Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It varies from request to request. For each request we receive, we have to decide whether we can collect all the documents in the set timeframe.
4:05 p.m.
Director General, Corporate Secretariat, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
We cannot do it like that, madam.
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Ninety-five per cent of the requests we have received since April 2010 were processed in the specified time. That is 30 days, with an extension possible if necessary.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
When you answered Dr. Bennett's question about translation, you said that putting a document onto the Internet would require you to have it translated in order to comply with the Official Languages Act. At the moment, when you get a request, you reply in the language chosen by the person who sent it, but you do not systematically translate all requests, is that correct?
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
That is correct.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Would it not be more efficient to translate them anyway? It seems to me that you might get several requests on the same subject in the same year and you end up having to do the translation later because the question is the same.
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
In theory, yes. But I have no figures to show the real cost of doing that.
4:05 p.m.
Director, Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
If I may, I would like to add that, at the moment, we get a request for translated documents only once or twice a year. We can get a translation request for 1,000 pages of documents. I have never seen a situation where the applicant has asked for translations of all the documents relevant to the request. It is usually one or two documents. It is rare for an applicant to ask for a document in the other language. Generally, people applying under the act know that they have a right to the information in its original format. So it is very rare for us to have to translate documents.