The last issue, which is in fact closest to my reality as a practitioner, has to do with the administrative framework of the applicability of the act.
As I said in the beginning, we have experience both federally and in Quebec. You've already heard from Diane Poitras, the vice-president of the Commission d'accès à l'information. You are probably also aware of the mechanism that exists in Quebec and the administrative tribunal with binding powers. However, before speaking about that, I would like to talk to you about some delays that cause frustration to third parties and access requesters. And since it can take an excessively long time to process requests, it may also create a lot of uncertainty. When an access-to-information request is made at the federal level, there is no way of knowing how long it will take to get an answer. The act sets out an indicative time limit that can be extended depending on the willingness of the public body, and the requester doesn't know when an answer will be received.
When third parties are consulted, they are often left in the dark, and they don't know whether a decision has been made or not. In my experience, when the public body decides to accept third party representations and not release the documents that the third parties are asking not to be released, we don't know about it. We have to follow up, chase after the bodies, and we have no information about when the decision should have normally been made. This can vary greatly. However, I don't think it is a question of bad faith by access-to-information officials. Depending on the department, the wait may be very short or very long because of the scope of the access requests.
The mechanism is two-pronged at the provincial level. First, there is a specific time limit of 30 days maximum. Then, there is a valve that allows public bodies to request that a much too onerous request not be processed. At the federal level, we often see mammoth requests where a vast number of documents is being requested. They pay $5 and try to make sure that the list of documents is as long as possible to cover everything. However, processing those cases may take months, if not more than a year. The first source of irritation is therefore the time limit framework for processing access requests.
The second source of irritation that contributes to time limits concerns the lack of powers given to the Information Commissioner, who acts more as an ombudsman than a decision-maker in access-to-information matters. Once again, these are time limits and decision that are not binding. So when you are a third party or access requester, in addition to the uncertainty about time frames, the answer that is slow to come and the outcome of the process, there is the Federal Court. So if you want to exercise your rights to the end and want a binding decision, you send people to the Federal Court after a lengthy wait. The Federal Court is probably one of the least accessible tribunals for citizens because of the excessively unwieldy process they have to follow.
When we compare Quebec, which has a relatively simple administrative tribunal, where a simple letter can start the process, with the Federal Court, where there are requirements and high fees, we see that the administrative process in place between the request and the completion of the decision-making process for the request is long and can be costly.
Therefore, the main thing that should be done regarding the Access to Information Act would be to re-examine this process. We should determine how we want requests for access to government documents to be handled, within what time frame and how we want to come to a final decision within a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost.
That is our presentation. We tried to be as brief as possible to give you an opportunity to ask questions.