Evidence of meeting #8 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 cbc.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Konrad W. von Finckenstein  Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Graham Sheppard  Senior Annual Returns Auditor, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Christianne Laizner  General Counsel , Telecommunications, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Gregory Thomas  Federal and Ontario Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

9:45 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

Yes, thank you.

I have a very quick question. The crux of the problem here that's facing the folks in the court battles is that the CBC is determining whether section 68.1 applies, not the Information Commissioner. This is not the way it's supposed to work. Regardless of how the wording is put in the act, the act clearly stipulates that it's the Information Commissioner who is supposed to apply the principles of section 68.1.

I have a second question for the CRTC. The CBC ombudsman reports back to the CBC, not the CRTC. Do you think that's appropriate? Should we be taking a look at that and determining whether the ombudsman should be reporting back to the CRTC as the regulator, instead of directly back to the CBC?

9:45 a.m.

Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Konrad W. von Finckenstein

Now you're talking about the governance of the CBC and there are all sorts of issues that you can look at. This is certainly one that you should look at. He reports right now, I believe, to the president of the CBC. For instance, he might have been reporting to the chairman of the CBC rather than the president, or he could report to us, etc. There are various models that you can adopt.

9:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Thank you very much. Our time is up for this portion of the meeting.

I want to thank Mr. von Finckenstein, Ms. Laizner, and Mr. Sheppard very much for appearing as witnesses before the committee.

We will now suspend for three minutes while we change our format.

9:45 a.m.

Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Okay. We will call the meeting back to order now.

Welcome, Mr. Thomas. We thank you for coming this morning to appear before the committee. We will begin with an opening statement from you, please, sir.

9:50 a.m.

Gregory Thomas Federal and Ontario Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

My name is Gregory Thomas. I represent the Canadian Taxpayers Federation as its federal and Ontario director.

We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit political advocacy group. We have about 70,000 supporters across the country. We've been around for 20 years, and our mission is lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government, at all levels.

I want to state at the outset that we sometimes get caricatured for our positions. We've not been actively antagonistic toward the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and we don't have any ongoing campaign against the CBC. We're not lobbying for any sort of adjustments to the CBC, apart from our overall belief that the budget should be balanced.

We actually submitted a plan to the House finance committee to balance the budget in two years, and the Minister of Finance described our plan as draconian. If Jim Flaherty thinks that budget-cutting proposals are draconian, I guess that probably explains where we stand fiscally. We believe in balancing the budget, but we're not out to get the CBC or anything like that. It's not our thing.

That being said, on the access to information file, we've also had many run-ins with the government. We've had run-ins with the Mulroney government, the Chrétien government, the Martin government, and we continue to have run-ins with Harper government over access to information issues.

Most notably, we were recently threatened with legal action by a former political staffer in the Harper government, as part of a complaint that we waged in conjunction with Newspapers Canada and the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association relating to the obstruction of an access to information request.

We are a consumer of information, a requester of information, and a believer in access to information and freedom of information. We have a very curious gentleman in our office, who spends a good portion of his week sending access to information inquiries. In fact he just emailed me to say there are 41,432 employees at the Canada Revenue Agency. That was today's revelation from an access to information request.

He's made a half a dozen or so requests about the operations of the CBC, and they've essentially been turned down. He's appealed to the Information Commissioner, and the Information Commissioner has ruled in his favour. CBC has refused to respect the wishes of the Information Commissioner.

This has nothing to do with the commercial interests of the CBC or their programming or their journalistic sources, or anything. They're just being ornery and contrary-minded in refusing to honour the spirit of the access to information law.

When the CBC adopts a policy of this nature, we don't believe it provides much encouragement to the rest of the government to honour the access to information laws. We think it sets a very bad example.

I think the other thing that our supporters find profoundly offensive is whole practice within government of government ministries and departments litigating against the Information Commissioner, this whole idea of spending taxpayers' money to go to court, tying up the resources of the Federal Court of Canada and the resources of the Information Commissioner, and spending public funds to have an internal battle between different government agencies.

Ideally, the legislation should be clear enough that everyone in the federal government can follow it, and publicly funded agencies should be able to.... The legislation should provide for a process whereby these issues get decided without resorting to lawyers, litigation, court cases and court costs. It's a big waste of money.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Thank you for your opening remarks.

We will now go to questions and answers, starting for seven minutes with Mr. Julian, please.

9:55 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for coming in today.

Mr. Thomas, you referenced your run-ins with the government on access to information requests. We're certainly aware of a whole number around the Prime Minister's Office refusing the Information Commissioner's access to information requests on Industry Canada and Environment Canada. This refusing of access to information requests has been systematic with this government. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little more on these run-ins and difficulties you've seen in regard to access to information with this current government.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

Point of order.

9:55 a.m.

Federal and Ontario Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Gregory Thomas

Mr. Julian, I have to apologize. I'm--

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Excuse me, Mr. Thomas, but we have a point of order.

Mr. Del Mastro.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

We may well get into broader studies at some point. Mr. Julian may even wish to attend them.

Perhaps you could remind Mr. Julian of what the topic is today so that he might seek answers to questions that are relevant to the topic at hand today, Madam Chairman.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Yes.

Mr. Julian, we are here discussing the court actions concerning the CBC and issues related to that, so please, I'll ask you to keep your comments relevant.

9:55 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Madam Chair, I have to disagree with you. We've obviously had a witness who has just made a very clear comment as a witness before this committee. It's quite relevant.

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Mr. Julian, we're not here to debate that issue. We are here to discuss this issue of the court actions concerning the CBC. We will keep our comments relevant to that.

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

Do we have another point of order?

10 a.m.

Conservative

Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON

Well, I suppose what I would argue, Madam Chairman, is that we need to keep to the topic at hand. We do have a second study, where we are looking into what I believe are violations of the Elections Canada act by the NDP, but we are not here to discuss that today.

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

That's very true. We are here to discuss the court actions concerning the CBC. We will try to stay on topic.

Mr. Julian, I will remind you once again that this is what we are discussing today. Thank you.

10 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Madam Chair, I'm following up on the comments of the witness, and I have been--

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson

If you can relate them to the study at hand, that will be fine.

10 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

If I could continue, Madam Chair, I have been in Parliament now for seven years and I have not seen a committee approach a study in this particular manner. It is quite a surprise to me, actually. I have heard some inklings of this through reading newspaper reports, but it's quite surprising to be in a dynamic where a witness makes a comment and a member of Parliament is restrained from following up on that comment.

Here we have a witness who has mentioned a run-in with government. It's absolutely appropriate, Madam Chair, when you have a witness who has raised concerns about how this government is treating access to information, and quite relevant, to compare those with the concerns that were expressed about the CBC, and where, clearly, the CBC has responded. Both in previous testimony before this committee and in testimony we've received since, it's clear that the CBC has been dealing effectively with following up on the unprecedented numbers of access to information requests they've received from Sun Media.

We now have a witness who has raised other concerns regarding run-ins with the government on access to information. In three particular areas—the Prime Minister's Office, Industry Canada, and Environment Canada—we've seen a systematic stalling and, often, a refusal, around access to information requests.

I have followed up on the witness's comments about run-ins with government. I will ask him if he could compare his concerns about the CBC to concerns that he has raised with the government in the past, which, as you know, Madam Chair, is perfectly relevant. He could compare the concerns about CBC access to information requests--which they are responding to--with the government's refusal to respond to access to information requests or where there has been no movement.

10 a.m.

Federal and Ontario Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Gregory Thomas

Well, our experience is that CBC is among the worst. It just seems to have a blanket disregard for the legislation and it ignores the directions of the Information Commissioner, who is a non-partisan officer with no axe to grind.

It went to court. It lost in Federal Court and now it is going to the Federal Court of Appeal. So it seems to have an attitude that it just doesn't want the legislation to apply to itself at all.

10 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Thomas, can you compare that to the PMO, the Prime Minister's Office, which went to court to stop the Information Commissioner from getting that information? How do you compare the two, or do you see the two as equally guilty?

10 a.m.

Federal and Ontario Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Gregory Thomas

I haven't studied the PMO issue. It related, I believe, to personal agendas and things of that nature. It wasn't our specific access to information request. We didn't ask for the Prime Minister's agendas and stuff, and I didn't specifically follow that case.

10 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Now, Mr. Thomas, if I can continue, your organization sent a letter to the chair of this committee regarding an investigation of interference around released information from a minister's office. At the time, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said, “Canadians need to know if this is the case, and the Commons committee on ATI, Ethics and Privacy should hold hearings into this critical situation.”

Does that continue to be the point of view of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, that the ethics committee should be sitting and looking into these pretty egregious violations of access to information requests and process? Is that your view, that the ethics committee should be holding hearings on that?