Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Please give a brief response.

[Gregory Thomas]

...of a systemic nature. It may not be a

black hole

It may be all the information....

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

If I have understood correctly, Mr. Thomas, you think that the Conservatives are no better than the Liberals who came before them. As for transparency, are you saying that you intend to form your own political party?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thanks very much, Mr. Boulerice.

We'll now move to Mr. Butt for five minutes.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

We'll go back to the subject at hand rather than all kinds of things that are not the reason we asked Mr. Thomas to be before us today.

I'd like to go back to the interaction with the CBC on the requests you made through access to information. Am I correct in saying they've had a compliance rate of zero percent, that they have not complied with even one of the access to information requests the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has made? Even though I think you indicated you haven't made many requests, they are still at zero. Is that correct?

[Gregory Thomas]

We've had some turnover. Our research staff turned over two or three years ago.

We don't keep elaborate records on this. As I said, we make hundreds of these applications. We've made very few to the CBC.

To give you an idea, I think the CBC has over 7,000 staff. We have two staff in Ottawa. When we discover that we're wasting our time, we move on. We have no axe to grind with the CBC. It's not a particular focus of ours. They almost never answer our questions anyway.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

It's not that the're delaying; it's that they're denying. They're just absolutely not responding to your requests for information.

[Gregory Thomas]

Right. And then we appeal to the Information Commissioner and win, and they ignore the outcome.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Are you aware if any of those denials are based on their interpretation of 68.1? Is that the rationale they're giving? Have you had any communication that this is their rationale, that they somehow seem to believe that your request is protected by journalistic, creative or programming activities?

[Gregory Thomas]

I don't believe they even resorted to that. It would be ludicrous if they did.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Just getting back to your position on the CBC generally, as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, you've talked about the $1.16 billion of public financing that this corporation, this broadcaster, gets every year from us.

I am curious as to why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation wouldn't have a stronger position on that issue, whether or not we agree or didn't agree. Do you believe the Canadian taxpayers are getting good value for $1.16 billion a year of direct taxpayer funding for a broadcaster that competes with many other national and regional broadcasters across the country?

[Gregory Thomas]

No, I don't think you can make the argument. Nobody can sit here and make the argument that $1.16 billion of public funds is an efficient allocation of public funds. It clearly isn't. We live in a 200 channel universe; 190 of the channels cost the taxpayers just about nothing, and 10 of the channels—the CBC channels—cost $1 billion. How do you square that? It makes absolutely no sense.

That being the case, government is running a some $30 billion deficit. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of taxpayers' funds being wasted. The CBC is a huge political and cultural issue. As soon as you mention the word CBC, everybody chooses a side. If it weren't the CBC, I'm sure that the official opposition wouldn't be providing such a vigorous defence of them because of everything the CBC represents—you know, Peter Mansbridge, Tommy Hunter, Charlie Farquharson. It's the whole CBC history of the last 75 years.

At the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we've just not made it a big priority to engage in that particular cultural struggle.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

But a—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you, Mr. Butt. I'm sorry, your time is up.

We're now going to go to Ms. Brosseau, and I understand that she is splitting her time with Ms. Freeman.

Five minutes, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Thomas, thank you for being with us today. I think that it's really important to discuss transparency.

CBC was given an F grade in the information commissioner's annual report. Natural Resources Canada also received an F.

Could you give us more details on that?

[Gregory Thomas]

Natural Resources Canada is not a federal department from which the Canadian Taxpayers Federation tries to obtain information. So, I cannot discuss the activities of that department.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Could you talk about an organization that also received an F and is similar to CBC?

[Gregory Thomas]

There have been no cases, across the government or within specific departments or institutions, where officials did not cooperate regarding information in the areas of science or IT, for instance. This is a systemic issue throughout the federal government, and it's something that I have already talked about. It seems to persist regardless of the political party or the government.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

So CBC became overwhelmed once it became subject to the Access to Information Act. It was bombarded with so many requests from one source.

What I've found and what I've read from the Information Commissioner is that they took appropriate measures to really try to deal with this. It was not expected, because when they became subject to the Access to Information Act, they had spoken with other institutions subject that were subject to it and they thought they were ready and had enough staff. I think over a period of time they had to hire more because the influx or demand was way too much.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade received an off-the-chart red alert. Do you know what that is, a red alert? I guess it must be lower than an F, is that right?

[Gregory Thomas]

I assume so.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay.

Do you have a question?

Does my colleague want to ask another question?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Thomas, for coming to committee to speak about this issue.

I'm confused as to why this actually is a top priority of this committee. I know you mentioned there are egregious examples of other violations. Could you explain why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation doesn't see these as a priority? Why would that be the case if there were maybe bigger violations that we should be looking at?

[Gregory Thomas]

Well, I'm not saying that this committee or the government shouldn't consider this as a priority. We have a long and storied track record that we've earned through thousands of access to information requests and through a long history of cooperating with other freedom of information privacy organizations on a number of files supporting the principal of access to information, and we intend to continue with this. We believe--

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Freeman, your time is up. Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen for a very short question, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Thomas, for coming here today.

First, to respond to some of the things that I've heard from our NDP colleagues, it really isn't the time to respond. It's the issue, it's the fact, as you say, they are refusing to comply with the requests. That is a really significant point.

Earlier this morning we talked about some of the funds that have been going to the CBC. From the cable and satellite distributors, the CBC has received $34 million from the particular fund they contribute to. That's another area from which money is coming into the CBC. Again, at the same time we look at certain situations where there have been bonuses that have been paid to certain executives. They are not the Tommy Hunters, they are not the Don Harron/Charlie Farquharson people that were in on the bonus round.

So I guess my question is, would something such as bonus pay coming from those funds be an ATI request, as far as your organization is concerned?