Thank you for this opportunity to come before you and answer your questions. My name is Mark Weiler. I am a web and user experience librarian at Wilfrid Laurier University. I am speaking today in my capacity as an individual, and not on behalf of the university.
As an academic librarian, my professional responsibility is to advocate for the value of access to information within society. As a user experience librarian, I am interested in how to make the Access to Information Act more user-friendly. In my own academic research I have used FOI laws many times, and I have helped academics use FOI laws for their own research.
It is an honour to discuss the Access to Information Act with you this year as 2016 is the 250th anniversary of freedom of information legislation. On December 2, 1766, Sweden passed the world's first freedom of information law. Coincidentally, 250 years ago on this very day, April 21, committee members of the Swedish Parliament were debating the issue of government censorship in the context of larger discussions about freedom of the press and access laws. Government censorship is a topic I will raise here today.
I would like to note that the Swedish Parliament has commissioned an edited volume by eminent Swedish and Finnish historians on the topic of their freedom of the press and access laws. I've organized an international petition, supported by 114 people from 33 countries, asking the Swedish Parliament to translate the book, so that lessons of Sweden's past will be accessible to current debates, such as the ones we will have in the next few years.
Although that FOI law has been around for 250 years, most of the world has only adopted FOI laws in the last 15 or so years. Canadians have only had the Access to Information Act for about 30 years.
Many people say the Access to Information Act is in a crisis. They will cite delays or redactions as irrefutable evidence that the law is broken. However, I disagree with such blanket statements, because they risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What is rarely discussed is how utterly amazing the Access to Information Act is when it works. In 1981 it would have been inconceivable for Canadians to access any significant amount of unpublished information held by a federal department. Now, with the Access to Information Act, it is possible for Canadians to know more about what goes on in a department than most employees who actually work there. Critics do not generally acknowledge this astounding development.
Now, to be very clear, I am not saying the Access to Information Act does not need improvements. It most certainly does. Rather, I'm saying it has revealed itself to have breathtaking promise that is worth the highest degree of protection.
I applaud the government for wanting to make more information proactively available and for improving the Access to Information Act; however, sometimes open government, open data, or proactive disclosure becomes conflated with meaningful improvements to the Access to Information Act.
For example, in 2013 when the Information Commissioner of Canada was conducting a public consultation on reforming the Access to Information Act, the Australian Information Commissioner made a submission endorsing a transformation from a reactive to a proactive framework. However, when the Australian commissioner was asked for clarification, he revised his statement, saying that proactive disclosure should operate alongside the right to access unpublished information.
I strongly object to any conflation of proactive disclosure with freedom of information legislation. Freedom of information legislation is rooted in the rights of Canadians to decide what unpublished information held in the custody of government departments they will access. In contrast, while proactive disclosure positions the government as a publisher of information, it simultaneously positions the government as a censor, in that the government decides what to publish but also what not to publish.
A report presented to the Swedish parliamentary committee on April 21, 1766, exactly 250 years ago to this day, said that it is no less certain that the government censor must also show greater partiality towards the publication of those works that support its opinions than those in which the faults of the party with which he sides.
Freedom of information legislation prevents governments from becoming censors of government information. Now, to be sure, I most certainly think there is a place for governments to publish information. But government publishing programs can never replace a robust access to information law that enhances the abilities of Canadians to access unpublished information.
To avoid harmful conflation, I recommend creating a new, separate law dedicated to publishing government information or data. Call it the mandatory information publication act. It could be rooted in the principle that governments have a responsibility to publish information that Canadians need to be informed citizens. Parliament or cabinet could debate the publication schemes it would include.
The Access to Information Act is fundamentally different, which is why it needs to be separate. It is rooted in the principle that governments are custodians of unpublished information and Canadians have a general right to access that information. I encourage strengthening the Access to Information Act by revising sections or adding new ones that enhance the ability of Canadians to identify and access unpublished information. I can speak to specific areas that I think are in need of improvement.
Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions.