Evidence of meeting #75 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was files.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Commissioner.
Looking at table 6 on page 5, at the number of access requests to the number of complaints, we see that the number of access requests from 2008 to 2012 has increased and the number of complaints has decreased significantly. What do you attribute that to?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
This is what I reported in my annual report in 2011-12. What we had seen, which I thought was very positive, was a decline in administrative complaints. Administrative complaints are complaints dealing with delays and extensions. That had been going down quite significantly year over year. Unfortunately, this past fiscal year—and we don't have these numbers—those complaints have increased again.
If you look at page 7, figure 2, you'll see in the last column the administrative complaints. In 2009-10, it was almost 50% of the caseload, and then it went down and down. Now this past fiscal year it has increased again. We have seen an impact in some institutions in terms of their ability to respond to access requests.
We don't have the actual total number of requests for the year 2012-13, so I can't tell you the percentage of complaints versus the percentage of requests for this past fiscal year.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Do you feel that requesters quite often request information, get the information, don't effectively know the laws of the information they're allowed to have access to, and they don't lodge complaints because they don't know the difference, they don't know they are entitled to certain pieces of information under the act? Do you have any idea if that's a common practice? Is that a concern?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I can't measure something I don't see, obviously. I can't speculate on what Canadians know or don't know.
There are two things. First, when institutions actually respond to a requester, they inform them of their right to complain to my office. Second, one of the issues I have with the Access to Information Act is that there really is no one responsible for educating the public under the Access to Information Act. This really is a deficiency that is almost now unique to the federal act.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
That needs to be amended in the legislation.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
I've gone through the information process a couple of times. Luckily, I had someone on staff who knew the act inside out and could say, “No, you're entitled to that.” We initiated a complaint and it did get resolved. But it was complicated. You wouldn't have known you were entitled to that information unless you were well versed in what you were entitled to. That's why I asked that.
In your statement you looked at the report cards. You made a number of recommendations both at the institutional level and at the Treasury Board Secretariat level. You said that most of these recommendations have been implemented.
What has not been implemented to date?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We made more specific recommendations on training professionals and professionalization of the ATIP professionals within the institutions. I know the Treasury Board Secretariat is working on that, but that's the one area where there still needs to be more progress.
We also had issues with consultations and delegation of authority. We still have the ongoing, systemic investigations that are looking at how that's being implemented in various departments. So there will be more recommendations coming out of that.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
What have been the responses to your report cards through 2010-11—the report cards you put out? Has there been compliance?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes. In the second report card, the last report card, we looked at 18 of the institutions that either were at risk or had done poorly in the initial report card. Of those 18, 13 had made improvements. That was very positive. I was very pleased with that in terms of timeliness.
As I say, the concern I have is the past fiscal year. I think once we have all the stats it's not going to be the same picture, because that's certainly not what I'm seeing on the complaint side. The increase in administrative complaints and some of the institutions that have generated a lot more complaints than in previous years, such as the RCMP, cause me concern in terms of what's going on in the system.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Because they're getting more requests? Has there been any indication as to why you're getting them in these institutions in the current year?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Some have told us it's because they don't have enough resources to actually respond to the requests.
Regarding the RCMP, I know there was a change in the number of people who worked in their ATIP shop.
There has been an increase in complaints this year for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. So far I don't know what the reason is; it's too early for us to tell. But there have been some strange things happening there, such as their response to requesters that they have one year to complain to my office, when in fact the law was amended in 2007 and it's 60 days. I don't know what's happening in terms of that institution.
We're seeing these kinds of things in this past fiscal year.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
In your 2010-11 report, you describe a number of noteworthy investigations. Can you provide us with some highlights? Which investigations were most meaningful to you in 2010-11?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The most meaningful investigation was really the one that led to the special report on political interference. That was the most significant investigation, and it was really the one that generated a lot of work at the office, certainly, in terms of how we conducted that investigation. We conducted many examinations under oath for that investigation, which is unusual for our office. That really is the one I would point to in terms of seminal investigations for that period of time.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Mr. Andrews, you are out of time. Perhaps you can continue later.
Right now, we're moving on to Mr. Carmichael for seven minutes.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reports today.
Commissioner, in your 2011-12 report you referred to the portfolio approach that you've adopted to bring a more efficient resolution, let's say, to the number of complaints. Over 30% of your inventory involved two institutions, the CBC and the CRA.
I wonder if you could first go a little more in depth in explaining the approach and how it works. Is it a bundling process? Is it consistently people who can work on specific accounts, for lack of a better term? Also, could you provide us an update on these two situations? Are we seeing progress? Is it working? How are you feeling about it?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Let me explain a little bit how I work these files. We're a very small office. Every Friday morning I sit down with the assistant commissioner and the intake director and we go through all the new files. It seems strange for a commissioner to do that, but it gives us a sense of file groupings. We have the case management system, which is a database, and we look at that, but by looking at what's coming in, we actually have a pretty good grasp of groupings. For instance, in a matter of two or three weeks we'll see several complaints in relation to a specific topic. We then assign these files to one investigator, or two, or we keep track of where they are so that they're consistent and they move along at the same pace. Or we'll get one complainant making a large number of complaints to one institution. We'll group those and assign them to one person.
We do these kinds of things as they come in, because we see the trends. For instance, when hot topics come up we'll see an influx of complaints, or, as I was saying in relation to the RCMP, in the course of a short period of time we'll see that there seems to be a problem in the institution because of the types of complaints we're getting.
Depending on what these situations are, we address them differently. We assign them to specific investigators, or I'll keep a closer eye on these files and their progress because of the nature of the topic. If it's something that seems to be wrong administratively in the institution, I'll call the head of the institution and give them a heads up. I find sometimes it hasn't necessarily come to the attention of the head of the institution at that time, so I serve as a heads up. I'll basically phone them and say “Something's not going right in your access shop.” Usually people respond and address it fairly quickly.
We have specific groupings, a special delegation, as I was saying to your colleague, such as national security files. A lot of them are with Library and Archives, CSIS, National Defence, or Foreign Affairs. We have a very small group of people that work on these files. These people are followed; I follow the group of these files and the progress on them.
I'm particularly mindful of those because of the sensitivity of the material. I've been quite concerned that the office has accumulated a large number of them. That's why I have this special project to deal with them, because I don't want those files to linger very long. I think it actually becomes problematic because of the sensitive nature of these files.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
You mentioned the national security number and the CBC number to my colleague. I didn't catch the number on CRA. Was there a number on that?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I have it somewhere. It's around 300 files for the CRA.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
That's fine. Terrific.
From a process perspective, so that I understand a bit how your organization works, you receive new complaints on a regular basis. You have your Friday morning meeting, but you have this “massive” inventory of old cases. Do you have a group that focuses exclusively on old files? And to keep current, when you get these new ones with new complexities and all of the various pieces that you've talked about, those would be brought to the front of the table and addressed fairly quickly. Is that more or less how you do it?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes, more or less. As you can imagine, we have more than we can handle, obviously, on any given day, so we do have to make decisions.
You don't have this, but this is my little magic table that I look at all the time. It basically gives me a status of the inventory in terms of numbers and by year. Then I follow through and separate them between special delegations, CRA, and CBC. Then I have the numbers. Actually, I have the number for you here. For CRA I have 282 live complaints, for CBC it's 213, and for special delegations it's 334. That's 46% of the total. My oldest file now is from 2005-06—that's the fiscal year; I have two in that year.
As I eliminate the years, I basically know, because of the old inventory, and I have a specific group of people who deal with the older files. What I'm finding is that the special delegation group actually has a lot of the old files.
Conservative
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
I'm guessing, then, from that chart, that that's the screen saver you look at every morning.
