Evidence of meeting #43 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 departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
February 9th, 2011 / 4:10 p.m.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, we could certainly submit our overall plan, which has five components, and we could tell you in more detail how we intend to work on this issue and move it forward.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
We want assurances on a regular basis that you are performing your duties.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
It would be our pleasure to keep you informed on our progress.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
So, the committee will be expecting a document describing the work you have done so far. We would also like you to provide us with a timetable and to tell us what you intend to do in the coming months. Is that clear? That's what we expect from you.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
When do you think you'll be able to provide us with these documents?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I think it will take at least one month, so that we can take stock of what we...
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I'm going to interrupt, because we have to move on to the next member.
Madame Charette, I want to clarify that as part of that last undertaking, your office will provide the committee clerk--not Madame Freeman--with the full details of as to what has occurred to date in your overall plan, which you call the five-point plan. You'll give a detailed summary on what has been accomplished to date, and you'll be able to do that within one month.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, we'll be able to come back within a month on what we've accomplished to date on that five-point plan.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Ms. Charette has committed to submitting the plan of what she just announced. She has also promised to give us a timetable of what she intends to do during the coming months, which is very important so that we can keep track of the work being done. So, there are two things we need. We need information on what has been done so far and on what will be done. In other words, we need a very clear timetable so that we can keep track of the situation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
You can also provide the future plans on this initiative and the timeframe that you expect to do that in also.
Liberal
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
I want to wrap up by congratulating the representatives of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Natural Resources for the work they have done.
You are both an example for the Chief Information Officer. I hope that she will be inspired by your work.
Thank you.
Liberal
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here this afternoon and for your presentations.
Madame Charette, where did you get your mandate to do this work on open government? As chief information officer, who gave you the mandate to work on an open government plan?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Last summer we did not proceed on a mandate of open government; we proceeded on a five-point plan for open data. The Treasury Board Secretariat CIOB is the custodian of the policy on information management. We're also the custodian on the policy on access to information and privacy.
Open data is an extension of our long history in access to information and privacy and proactive disclosure. In fact, we are still a very strong world leader in this regard. We've published much more information on access than many other jurisdictions. In fact, we have been publishing access to information since 1983, whereas the U.K., for instance, only enacted its freedom of information regime in 2005. I think Canadians have been well served in this regard.
We are initiating our work on open data specifically. We are also continuing our work on open government for public servants. That is our GCPedia initiative, which we're very pleased with. While it has only 21,000 contributing users, it is used very widely by a large number of public servants to keep abreast and to find, use, and repurpose information and knowledge and so on.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Which minister in government comes to you and asks, “How are we doing on open data? How are we doing on our open government plan”? Which minister said that we need an open government plan and an open data plan?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
The Treasury Board Secretariat provides advice to our minister, the President of the Treasury Board. It is our job to stay abreast of the trends and the work done in other jurisdictions, as well as by our colleague departments, and from that awareness to propose potential policy areas and initiatives to consider. That is what we do.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Do you have a relationship with the Clerk of the Privy Council? I think you mentioned the clerk in your statement at one point; what's that relationship in relation to how this is implemented through government?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
The clerk has been a fantastic supporter of GCPedia. GCPedia is our wiki within the government for public servants. He has a page of his own on GCPedia where he shares some information, which all public servants can access freely from their desktops; they can even initiate some form of dialogue with him and so on. The clerk is a strong fan of the internal wiki and believes it to be a key catalyst for public service renewal.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
We've certainly heard how important that sharing of data among public servants is.
We've seen how the access to information process has been very unevenly implemented across government. Different departments have different records on that. Are we headed in the same direction on this? Is it going to be up to individual ministers or individual deputy ministers to drive this open data process within their departments, or is there an overall government impetus with political leadership that will drive this process in accord with an even and coordinated standard across government? Are we going to have the same uneven record in open data or open government that we have with ATIP?
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I have to say that our access to information community has done a fantastic job in keeping up with an ever-increasing volume of access to information requests. While the resources assigned have grown, there's always a limit to what you can assign. The policies, the best practices, and the instruments we publish in this regard are meant to allow the community to perform in the best way possible and while respecting all of the requirements of the legislation.
In the area of open data, our goal is to come up with a policy direction and standards and best practices that departments will be able to adopt. This outcome will in fact be inspired by the fine work of our pioneer departments, such as Environment and NRCan. However, not all departments have the resources, the skill, or even the experience base that some of the scientific departments have in stepping up to the plate. Not all departments published the Atlas of Canada in 1906, or the first meteorological survey. Clearly the science departments have a huge leg up on some of the other policy departments.