Evidence of meeting #45 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 agencies.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Are you telling us that you are afraid that, post-Obama, open government may lose a lot of its steam in your country?
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
It was more of a question that I raised; that is, given that this President has placed a high priority on openness, let's assume another President comes in and puts less emphasis on it. If it isn't a law, but rather an administrative practice of this President, what happens?
4:30 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
Your fear is that the openness you are seeing at the moment could be reduced when another president is elected. So you are taking nothing for granted. For us, the open government that we are seeing everywhere, in a number of countries, is a global event. There is no going back. With all the new technologies, it is unthinkable that there will be a sudden desire to contain information.
With everything that has happened thanks to the new social media technologies, there can be no going back. To me, it seems strange that you are saying it could be done. The will of the people is now taking hold around the world. There is still resistance here in Canada, but we will have to see how long that lasts.
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
I would hope you're right. That's why I asked, is the barn door now open and you can't shut it? By the same token, if you don't have in the next administration, say, a White House team that is pushing aggressively, or you don't have detailed timetables like the Open Government Directive, or you don't have an emphasis on the use of technology such as by creating a Data.gov, the question is, do you still have the same energy to push the envelope to go further? Maybe we will stay as we are now, which in many respects will then be not moving forward.
So I don't know the answer to that; I'm just raising it as a question, and one I think our legislative branch really needs to take a look at, to determine whether or not legislation to continue the practice is warranted, regardless of what administration and who comes in.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair. I'll just ask one question.
Dr. Bass, maybe you could expand on what your preliminary thoughts are or what your thoughts right now might be about what that legislation might look like, if we needed to go down that road. What would that codification look like?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
Again, I will just speak for OMB Watch, rather than for a broader set of groups that have been meeting on this.
For me, the number one issue is bringing the Freedom of Information Act into a modern-day model that promotes a voluntary disclosure requirement, which tells agencies that they must affirmatively disclose. Frankly, I would put in certain standards that deal with accountability, with mission purposes, with empowering the public to better understand how a government operates, and I would have very specific elements as a floor, not as a ceiling. But that's me.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Siksay.
There are a couple points I want to raise with you, Mr. Bass. Again, I want to thank you for your testimony.
First of all, there has been some evidence here in Canada, coming from the cities, that once they embarked upon an open government format, the number of inquiries they had come in under their access to information act decreased. In fact, one city has indicated that the decrease has been 50%.
I know it may be preliminary evidence on this question, but is there any evidence coming from the States that because of the additional information being posted online, the number of access to information requests may be decreasing?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
I don't have data like that, but I will say you raise an incredibly interesting point.
Under our Recovery Act that I was mentioning, and our Recovery.gov website, the model caused all of our states to create state-level recovery websites that are relevant to that state's data. There was no funding for that. I think what has happened is we've created this momentum that is both exciting and potentially informative.
To the extent that the Recovery Act information is posted online, it may mean that groups don't have to file state openness requests because it's already available.
So yes, it could actually be a savings of dollars. Many states are thinking about that—California, for one.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Mr. Bass, my suspicion is that the committee members may have other questions, but we do have limited time. Would you entertain questions via e-mail, if the clerk were to send them to you?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
I would love it. Not only can OMB Watch be helpful to you, but I would be happy to circulate them to other groups who have been working on this in the U.S. to get their perspectives.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Okay. We appreciate that.
Again, if any members do have any inquiries, they can submit them to the clerk. The clerk can process them and have the answers translated and circulated to all committee members.
My last question is what are you doing for the next year? Perhaps you'll come to Canada to help us.
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, OMB Watch
I grew up right next door to Canada. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and I used to go over to Windsor. I love Canada.
I should say, by the way, that I'm extremely impressed with the study you're undertaking. I hope I can learn from what you're doing. This is a very exciting time. You're wrestling with an important subject, and it's a very exciting endeavour.
Whatever you come up with, I think you should be sharing it with other countries. I think it's very exciting.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
On behalf of everyone present, I want to extend our sincere thanks. Your help has been tremendous, and certainly we will be in touch in the future.
Thank you very much.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I'm going to suspend now for one minute; the technology has to be reformatted. We'll reopen in about two minutes in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]