Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 30th, 2010

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Would they require additional specific training related to Foreign Affairs, because of the section 13 and section 15 requirements? It would seem to me there'd be some fairly significant additional training required.

[Gérald Cossette]

In some instances we have to hire people who have security clearances, if the files that need to be reviewed have security implications. You may have specific cases for which you need people with the right security clearance, and sometimes there's a limited number of people who have that kind of access or that kind of clearance.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I think it's important that all of us around this table, and indeed Canadians, understand that it isn't as simple as putting out an ad and getting a flood of applications. I think it's really crucial that all of us are aware of that.

Finally I'll ask about the funding envelope that you've indicated here. An additional $2.7 million has been allocated, and if I understood you correctly, the total for ATIP within the department is $8.2...?

[Gérald Cossette]

It's $8.247 million, basically $8.25 million for the current fiscal year.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

You also mentioned that there may be some trade-offs required from time to time between ATIP funding and possibly foreign missions. I think it's important that we, as parliamentarians, grapple with that.

I guess I have a question. Where will this ATIP ballooning of requests end? Is there any end? Do we have to cap it at some point in order not to shortchange some of the very important work that departments do? I think it's important that we don't shortchange some of the missions abroad. I wonder if you could respond to that.

[Gérald Cossette]

As long as Canadians are interested in government affairs, you will have requests for access to information.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I understand the request for access, and I think it's important that legitimate requests are honoured and answered in a timely manner. I have no problem with that. But the skeptic in me begins to wonder if some of these requests are actually requests for information for information's sake, or simply to make a point. I know you can't judge that, nor can I, but I am concerned that we don't simply go down this path and have an unwieldy budget that ends up actually shortchanging some of the significant work that we expect the department to do, that should be their primary focus.

[Gérald Cossette]

There is always the danger that your spending on ATIP may not be sufficient, as I said before, if there's a significant spike in demand. What we're trying to do this time is to be in front of the wave, not behind the wave. We have seen a very significant increase since 2004. We seem to have plateaued, but we'll see. Hence the need, basically, to build the capacity that will respond to a surge, if there was a surge in demand.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Albrecht.

Mr. Siksay for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Monsieur Cossette, a while back the chair reminded us of the testimony of DFAIT officials five years ago, and in that he mentioned the hope that a new tracking system would be established. It had a name back then. Is that system in use now? Are you talking about implementing something else now? How do those two systems relate to each other? Or are there in fact two systems?

[Gérald Cossette]

I will ask Monique to provide a more detailed answer, but, yes, there are two separate systems. The one that we advertised in 2005 is in place, and has been in place for a number of years now. What we are talking about is a different capacity.

[Monique McCulloch]

I am glad to follow up on that.

Yes, absolutely. My former director general, Michael Calcott—I was there at the time—made reference to the necessity to purchase an ATIP imaging system, which was for the ATIP office to be able to move from a paper-based environment to an electronic redaction process, so that our analysts were not literally still using a pink highlighter on a document, only then to run it through the old Canon photocopiers that removed the pink highlight. Those were our redactions. Our analysts have had the use of imaging since 2006, and it's a very efficient process.

What we're talking about now is the next generation. Currently we receive the bulk of the records that are subject to requests in hard copy. What we are trying to do is create that interface between my ATIP shop and the program areas; they can simply upload the relevant records in electronic form, so they are not having to take electronic records and put them in hard copy form, only for us to then scan them and put them back into an electronic form. It provides efficiencies that way. That is just one example of the functions of this new software.

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

Great. Thank you.

Mr. Cossette, how has the fact that Canada is a country at war affected the access to information process? Is that one of the main causes of the pressure the department is under with regard to access to information, the extra work that's related to being a country that is at war?

[Gérald Cossette]

One of the most prominent topics we have on our access to information list is Afghanistan, issues pertaining to detainees and issues pertaining to our actions in Afghanistan at large, yes.

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

Is that responsible for the backlog? If we weren't at war, would the backlog be more manageable? Could we handle the work of ATIP coordinators at DFAIT?

[Gérald Cossette]

I cannot answer that question; I don't know the answer.

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

Right now you say it's significant. Is it the most significant issue you deal with in terms of the difficult pieces of ATIP requests?

[Gérald Cossette]

In terms of difficulty, that's another issue. In terms of volume, we know it is one of the most popular topics, if you wish. We're talking about Afghanistan, mining, United Nations, Cuba-Canada relations, and trade agreements. Those are more or less the most common demands right now.

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

Do you have percentages related to those?

[Gérald Cossette]

Not with me, no.

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

I wanted to ask specifically about the third recommendation of the commissioner. She recommended:

...that Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada immediately cease counselling other government institutions to close files when there is the prospect of section 13 or section 15 exemptions, and follow through instead with the mandatory consultation process in a timely manner.

I know the department responded that this would be done immediately. Can you tell me how that was actually implemented? What did that involve, to get the message out that this kind of counselling was to cease immediately?

[Monique McCulloch]

I'm happy to respond on behalf of Mr. Cossette.

Just to provide some explanation, the bulk of our workload is responding to consultations from other government departments for sections 13 and 15 of the act. It's information that may have been obtained in confidence from a foreign government, for example, or an international organization, or that the release of the information could in itself possibly impact on our international relations. It is a big part of the work.

When another government department faced a legislative deadline and did not want to be late on their access request--they are the ones who receive the access requests; they consult us. When we were not in a position to respond within their timelines—sometimes they would ask for the response within two weeks, for example. If their legislative due date was approaching, we suggested they withhold those portions to safeguard that international relationship and provide an interim response to their applicant. Then we would follow up with the response once our consultation abroad was complete.

The Information Commissioner did not approve of this practice, in that the commissioner felt we were encouraging other government departments to shut down their requests while there were still outstanding consultations. So the process to stop that practice was to revise our response letter to the other departments when there was an outstanding consultation, to tell them they could invoke and close their file. We've removed that. It remains at the coordinator's discretion for that particular institution, whether they feel they are going to provide an interim response and close their file to meet the legislative due day. But we are no longer suggesting they can go ahead, invoke the exemption, and close their file. It was just a matter of removing it from our templates.

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

Do you know how that's affected the--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You're way over time. Sorry.

Dr. Bennett, you have five minutes.