Information & Ethics Committee on April 15th, 2010

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

We recognize, certainly, that the public's right of access to information needs to be balanced against the legitimate need to protect sensitive information. We've had a fair amount of criticism lately about censored documents. It's my understanding that there is no statistical data to support the conclusion that there are more censored documents. Is that correct?

[Suzanne Legault]

The only thing that we have is the statistics collected by Treasury Board Secretariat in terms of the percentage of documents where all the information is disclosed as opposed to partially disclosed. As I stated the last time I was here, this has gone down. We used to disclose all the information, at the rate of basically 30% in 2002; now it is at about 18%. There has been a decline. If you look at what has been partially disclosed and what has been all disclosed year over year, those two statistics together seem to be consistent.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Siksay.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I will continue with the whole question of the consultation process and how that seems to be a bottleneck in the system, Commissioner. In some of the public news reporting on the whole question of political interference, there was a very clear implication that referrals for consultation to Foreign Affairs were a way of delaying or denying access to information. I think the phrase that the reporter quoted a staff person using was that it gets sent for a consultation and Foreign Affairs works their magic; I think that was the phrase used.

Will the consultation process be one of the focuses of your investigation into political interference?

[Suzanne Legault]

The systemic investigation that I'm going to do this fiscal year does look at the extensions and consultations, and we're also going to look at the delegation of authority. We are also going to look at whether there is political or other interference at the senior levels in terms of causing delays or reducing what should be disclosed under the legislation. We're going to look at all of these things.

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

I would assume, as you mentioned in your remarks this morning, that the Department of Justice is also an institution that has to do a lot of consultations, yet somehow they seem to do them successfully. Is there something they are doing that could be applied to these other departments, specifically on the consultation process?

[Suzanne Legault]

The justice department has completely turned around its performance, for sure, and consultation was one of the issues with them. They have MOUs with several of the institutions that they deal with on a regular basis. To be fair, institutions like the Department of Foreign Affairs would tell you that it's easier to make a decision on solicitor-client privilege types of consultations than it is in terms of international relations, because they have to go outside.

Even National Defence, in terms of the consultations they have to make, don't have a great record, but they have a better record. One thing I could tell you is that I have had a suggestion from Minister Cannon in terms of getting more detailed information on these consultations with foreign countries, and I told him I would seriously consider doing a comparative analysis. That was his suggestion. I thought that was a very good one, and if we could get this information that way, it would add more context to the systemic investigation.

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

Other countries must run into these same kinds of situations in terms of needing to consult with foreign governments on their access requests. Are there other countries that have better models on this?

[Suzanne Legault]

That's what I don't know. That's what Mr. Cannon's suggestion was, which I thought was a very good one, if we can do it.

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

I want to come to the question of staffing and retention of staff. It seems to be an issue in a number of the departments. I'm just wondering what the issues are there that you see when you look at this as an excuse for a delay or a reality of the delays that some departments are experiencing.

[Suzanne Legault]

It's definitely a reality of the delays. I'm quite convinced of that. In fact, last year we did make a recommendation to have an integrated human resources strategy for access to information professionals. This has not been acted upon.

I know that the Treasury Board Secretariat is developing competencies to assist institutions, but in most of the institutions that we have reviewed, that we speak to on a regular basis, they are almost constantly in a staffing process and that takes them away from their job of answering access to information requests or consultations.

I would recommend--and I did recommend again this year--that there be a central role for human resources for access to information professionals at the federal level. This is clearly an administrative step that can be taken. It would make a difference for the regime as a whole.

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

This morning, in your remarks, you say, “This community represents a unique culture within government, as their mandate is transparency amid an environment that tends to be risk averse”.

Is that environment causing people to not want to take jobs as ATIP officers or in access to information departments because they realize the difficulties that's potentially going to set up for them with their careers or that it's going to set them up for conflict within the department where they work?

[Suzanne Legault]

Access to information analysts and coordinators really have a difficult time of it in the government, I would say. Between the requester, the senior officials within their own organization, all of the other areas that they have to get information from to respond to an access to information request, and the investigators in my office, it's not an easy task.

That being said, the secretariat did a survey--I believe it was last year, about 15 months ago--with the community and most of them indicated that they really liked their work. They liked the challenge of it. They liked the fact that they learned new things all the time, so it wasn't a negative survey of the community.

But there aren't enough of them. I think we should really.... If we had an integrated human resources strategy, we could staff from outside the government. This could be part of the retention, renewal, and recruitment of new public service recruits. I think we could definitely see an initiative there from the government to bolster those numbers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Ms. Foote.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you.

I want to go back to my initial line of questioning. In your report on page 10, you talked about recent high-profile complaints concerning the interference of political staff in the access to information process. You mentioned that there are three cases that you're going to be looking at. Can you provide the committee with the names and the circumstances around those three cases, please?

[Suzanne Legault]

Well, there's one that's in the public domain because it was reported by The Canadian Press. It involves Mr. Togneri, who at the time was a staffer for Mr. Paradis, who was the Minister of Public Works at the time. That is one of them.

There is another one that is partly in the public domain that is directed at the Department of National Defence, and this came from a complaint by the New Democratic Party. That's in the public domain.

There is a third one--

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

May I ask who's implicated in that one?

[Suzanne Legault]

The other details are not in the public domain, Mr. Chairman, so because of the confidentiality and the privacy provisions within my legislation, I'm not at liberty to disclose those details.

With the third investigation, to my knowledge, there is nothing in the public domain either. So for the same reasons, Mr. Chairman, I would ask for the indulgence of the committee so that I can keep that information confidential.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Is the PMO aware of those? Are you aware of that?

[Suzanne Legault]

Not that I'm aware of. I've received these complaints and I am investigating them in a confidential manner, as I always do. All of the details of the investigation are confidential. I'm not sharing that with anyone at this point.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I have one other question, then, with respect to that. On the third case, can you tell me where the complaint originated from?

[Suzanne Legault]

I'm not at liberty to disclose that information, Mr. Chairman.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I had to try.

I'm wondering if you could provide the committee with a list of all of the individuals who have delegated authority to review ATIP requests within each government department and agency.

[Suzanne Legault]

Mr. Chairman, the delegation of--