Information & Ethics Committee on April 15th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Madame Thi Lac, s'il vous plaît.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you again, Mrs. Legault. We appreciate making yourself available to answer all these questions.

According to our colleagues across, things have improved since they came into power. I would like to know if the problems that we face or the solutions that have been implemented during the past year are related to the culture of the public service or if they are more of a political nature.

[Suzanne Legault]

Mr. Chair, I have not made any comments related to the culture of the public service during this process of report cards. When I was asked about this in the press conference, I stated that I would like to see the same kind of initiative as that taken by president Obama in the US. I am referring to the whole issue of open government. Some initiatives have also been taken in Australia.

From what I understand, your committee is going to look at this issue and I am anxious to contribute to this exercise. I am truly convinced that our future is really based on a culture of openness. I believe that that is the real issue for us. What we should ask is how each one of us can improve the situation in terms of openness.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Which of your recommendations do you believe should be most urgently implemented?

[Suzanne Legault]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is an excellent question. The Department of Foreign Affairs definitely has to improve. That has a systemic impact. I would also say that the issue of human resources in the institutions has to be dealt with. These are the two very major priorities I would bring to the attention of your committee. I also believe that we should have a closer look at the issue of compulsory consultations to see if it would be possible to set up some safeguards in order to ensure some discipline and accountability.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

You have referred to steps taken in the US and in Australia that it might be useful to implement here also. Among those, which ones would you like to see implemented here?

[Suzanne Legault]

With your permission, Mr. Chair, I would like to answer that question the next time I appear before the committee, in two weeks. I would like to be better prepared. The issue is complex. I would like to be able to provide a comprehensive answer. What is being done in the US is very extensive. We are not in the US but we do have to look at what the other countries are doing.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

As a commissioner, do you find it normal that access to information requests would be channeled to PCO before answers are provided to requesters?

[Suzanne Legault]

As far as cabinet confidences are concerned, it is in the Act. According to the policy of the Treasury Board Secretariat, consultation is compulsory about cabinet confidences before disclosing the contents of the documents. I believe they should be exempted instead of excluded, which would give me a right of review. From my position as Commissioner, that would be what would make the most difference.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Siksay, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, I wonder if the analyst, the clerk, or maybe the commissioner could make sure we get a copy of the document from Treasury Board on the best practices for delegation of authority when it's available so that we can all have a look at that document, since it's been an important part of our discussions. Could that be distributed to members of the committee? Thank you.

Commissioner, I want to go to the section on the Privy Council Office in particular. Starting on page 59, there are various recommendations you made and their responses to those. Can you tell me about that process of making a recommendation and obtaining the response?

[Suzanne Legault]

Perhaps I can ask Josée to explain this in more detail.

[Josée Villeneuve]

We received a response from the Privy Council Office through a questionnaire, and then we had a face-to-face meeting with representatives from the Privy Council Office. We analyzed that information, we turned it into a draft, and we turned it over to PCO to correct any inaccuracies. Also, at that point, the recommendations are in the draft and we're asking them to respond, basically.

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

So with regard to these specific recommendations, it seems like you and the Privy Council Office quite clearly don't agree on a number of them.

Certainly, the first one is a very broad and pretty fundamental one, where you recommend “that the Clerk of the Privy Council demonstrate leadership in establishing access to information as an institutional priority without exception”. That's pretty clear and straightforward. The response kind of says, yes, we sort of do that, but it doesn't.... Do you find it an acceptable response? I guess that's my question.

[Suzanne Legault]

These are the responses of the institutions; it's not just the Privy Council Office. Each institution has its own response to the recommendations. We print them in their entirety for transparency purposes. They're telling us that they're committed to it, and it's in writing, so that's their commitment to this committee as well.

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

Is there anything in the specific response to that question that you hadn't taken into consideration when you were doing your evaluation, your report card on the Privy Council Office? Is there any new information provided there?

[Suzanne Legault]

I will ask Josée.

[Josée Villeneuve]

No.

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

Okay.

With regard to the second one about the delegation of authority to the ATIP officer for cabinet confidences, can you talk about the argument they make about why this isn't appropriate? Clearly it's a strong recommendation you've made that has been committed to in the past. A response to their response...?

[Suzanne Legault]

Delegation of authority is really the prerogative of each institution. As I said before, our preference, our experience, basically indicates that the best-performing institutions have the full delegation to the coordinator or the director of access to information. Our concern is whether it adds additional delays or whether it results in less disclosure. The response here tells us that it doesn't add additional delays and that this is, from their perspective, satisfactory.

I'm going to look at this in more detail as part of the investigation, because the report cards are very much questions and answers, you know; we look at some documents but we don't do a real investigation. But because I have concerns, I need to have the data before I can come back and make a really sound diagnostic on this issue.

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

The third recommendation is that “PCO-ATIP develop a clear plan to tackle the backlog of access requests”. Now clearly if you're making that recommendation, you believe that there isn't a clear plan there. Does their response satisfy you that a clear plan is going to be put in place to address that?

[Suzanne Legault]

You know, I'm satisfied that they are really working to deal with their situation, their backlog and their number of requests. They do have quite a lot of staffing issues at the Privy Council Office. In fact, you will find that at the institutions where they have a large backlog or a large consultation workload, it's difficult to keep staff. It's a very competitive market for access to information professionals, so the harder the situation is at an institution, the more difficulty they have in keeping their staff.

As soon as they get better and better, as soon as their situation improves, the staff do tend to stay. I mean, if you look at Justice, they have very good stability. Other institutions that are doing well have more stability. So definitely the Privy Council Office's staffing to address their workload is an ongoing issue.

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

So a clear plan with regard to staffing would help address that recommendation?

[Suzanne Legault]

Yes.