Evidence of meeting #7 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 institutions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I'm not asking about a particular investigation. I'm asking about the broad authorities that exist in the system.
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
There are currently no delegations of authority in place within federal institutions that provide a delegation of authority under the Access to Information Act to political staffers.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Right. So what capacity would they have in practice to block the release of access to information?
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
They have no authority under any delegation of authority that currently exists in the federal access to information regime.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay. They would have no practical ability to block the release of an access to information request.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Is this one of those issues of whether they “can” or whether they “may”? I mean, anybody can do anything they want. It's whether they may do it or are permitted to do it. This is where I think we're getting--
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Well, thank you for contributing your insight to my questioning, Mr. Chair. I think I have the best answer I'm going to get to that particular question.
I noticed, though, that you want to remove immigration, CIC, from your overall grading because, you said, it has particular ease in carrying out rapid responses to access to information. You went on to say there are particular difficulties for DFAIT in releasing information promptly because of some of the practical realities of that kind of department.
I'm curious as to why you never thought to remove DFAIT from your overall grading of the aggregate, given that it, too, is an outlier--just on the other side.
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The question is whether it should be such an outlier or not; it's the same thing for other institutions such as CIDA, for instance, that have very long average completion times. I don't think they should have such long average completion times.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
But do you acknowledge, though, that DFAIT, for example, which does have to work with foreign governments and collaborate in the release of jointly held information, might have more difficulties in being prompt than, for example, CIC?
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
They would. Yes.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
This is the point I'm going to close on, because you took some of my time, Chair, so I'll just take it back.
I'll point out that you wanted to remove CIC from the aggregate because it would unfairly improve the picture, but you do not want to remove DFAIT because it would worsen the picture. If you're going to have an aggregate, then it has to include everybody. If you're going to take out outliers, you have to take out all the outliers.
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It's a very good point, Mr. Chairman.
Part of the problem with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the statistics as a whole is that because their requests are able to be processed so quickly, it's not giving us a true picture of where the real delays are in the system. And yes, the purpose of the report cards--and the member is quite right--is to look at where the delays are, because that's what we want to improve. We want to improve the timeliness of responses, which is part of the duty to assist the requester that was put into the act in 2006.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In response to a comment by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, did I hear you say, before he cut you off, that you're currently investigating interference by a staffer in the Prime Minister's Office? Was that what I heard you say?
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
If that's what you heard me say, that's not what I wanted to say.
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I referred to the case that's already in the public domain, the case involving Mr. Togneri, who was the staffer for Mr. Paradis when he was the Minister of Public Works.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Okay. Clearly, if it's shown to be accurate, it's a clear violation.
Interim Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It depends on what the evidence uncovers, Mr. Chairman.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
That doesn't seem to bother thePrime Minister when it comes to some criminal investigations. That's not a question for you; it's just a comment. We're seeing that insinuations out of the Prime Minister's office don't seem to bother him, even when--
Liberal
Liberal
