Information & Ethics Committee on May 10th, 2016

[Jennifer Dawson]

Advancing the interim directive at this point is intended to help us move as quickly as we can in support of some of the government's commitments. There was a commitment made to eliminate all fees other than the initial $5 fee, and the directive enables us to move forward on that quickly.

That said, though, we're very interested to hear from the committee and from other stakeholders as well in terms of the value of continuing to collect the initial $5 fee. As you point out, there are costs associated with its collection. Another consideration on the initial $5 fee is whether there a balance there: does paying a $5 fee up front deter any of the frivolous and vexatious requests?

It is something we're thinking about. You'll have seen, perhaps, that live on our website we have a consultation section asking Canadians for feedback on whether we should still collect this $5 fee or whether we should be considering other approaches to it.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

With respect to forgoing the cost of the research and printing and continuing to have the revenue you're collecting with the five dollars, but forgoing the other revenue, is there any understanding of how it's going to impact the finances of the office?

[Jennifer Dawson]

Yes, I can dig into my big fat binder and find the exact amount of money we have been collecting through fees other than the initial application fee. It isn't an amount of money that would be anticipated to have any impact on the access to information services. The access to information services are currently not cost-recovery. We spend significantly more in processing access to questions than we collect in revenue.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

While you're seeing if you have that at your fingertips, I could move on to another question.

The representatives from Citizenship and Immigration, when asked how they would be affected by allowing non-Canadians to file ATIP requests without having to go through a Canadian intermediary, said they estimated it would roughly double the number of requests they receive. The allocation in the budget for 2016, which I don't have at my fingertips right now, spread across all the other departments, would not appear to come even close to covering the additional requests that are anticipated.

How do you propose to provide for such an increase if non-Canadians are allowed to file requests?

[Jennifer Dawson]

On that question, we would be looking to the committee's advice in terms of the application of the law and extending it beyond Canadians. That isn't a decision that's been taken at this point, and we're certainly sensitive to the feedback from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in terms of the potential impact to their operations. They do represent about 50% of the requests that come in.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Indeed, the budget allocation has already been made. As a committee, if we look at this and say there is nowhere near enough money to accommodate that request, is that off the table, or should it be considered off the table, since there is no money for it?

[Jennifer Dawson]

All of the recommendations that would come forward, either through our public consultations or from this committee, would have to be looked at in the light of what's possible and in terms of the timing of changes, as well as to ensure they're effectively applied. I know we're eager to have views and we are open to the feedback we receive to try to identify the best way forward.

It's the first time this act has been revisited for a long time, and there will be, we hope, new ways of looking at how we provide this service. We are going to have to adapt in a number of different ways.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

The Prime Minister's document entitled “Open and Accountable Government” is a fairly lengthy, comprehensive document that covers a number of areas. How much does the Treasury Board anticipate it would cost to implement all the recommendations and enforce all the provisions of that document?

[Jennifer Dawson]

To some extent, the guidance that's provided in the open and transparent document in terms of information management is consistent with existing policies and guidance for ministers' offices. There is no anticipated cost associated with ensuring that information is being managed well and that records are retained appropriately and transferred to library archives when that's required, or that political records remain in the hands of politicians.

In terms of access to information and the potential to extend it appropriately to the Prime Minister's offices and ministers' offices, we don't have costing associated to that because we haven't arrived at a point where we have developed advice on how that would apply. We're still in the consultation mode.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kelly.

That concludes that particular block of time.

We'll now move to Mr. Blaikie for seven minutes, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I noted in your presentation that you said the policy on information management doesn't apply to crown corporations. I was wondering if there's a particular reason for that, other than that it simply doesn't, or if there is something that prevents it from being applied to crown corporations.

[Jennifer Dawson]

It's reflective of the fact that crown corporations operate at arm's length from ministers in terms of their day-to-day operations and report through ministers to Parliament.

That said, we do have good engagement by many crown corporations around the information management community. We are sharing best practices and information, and there are crown corporations that independently choose to adopt the government solution, GCDOCS.

The reason the policy doesn't apply is that arm's-length nature.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Is it possible, or is it already happening, that some crown corporations are able to use the GCDOCS program or software as information management technology, or are they outside of that as well?

[Jennifer Dawson]

They are able to use GCDOCS products independent of the project that Sarah and her team are leading. One example would be the museum of science and technology. It is a crown corporation that uses GCDOCS in its operations. There are probably others, but I'm not as familiar with them.

[Sarah Paquet]

We also provide the service to organizations outside what we call the core, but these are not partners of Shared Services Canada. We provide them with basic services. They can buy their license through us. We will share best practices. They can take part in the discussions on the development of the solution. But they have their own data centres.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

In your presentation, you made reference to the Shared Services Canada enterprise data centre. Does that data centre have the capacity for the complete rollout of GCDOCS, or is there another major infrastructure investment somewhere in that program?

[Sarah Paquet]

No, the idea is to have one place where everybody will be located; a lot of efficiency is associated with managing just one. We would like to have all the organizations that are not on this single platform migrate and operate from only one platform in the future. That's what we're trying to do.

The answer to your question is yes. We are working in close collaboration with SSC to ensure that the platform has the capacity to receive people, and we are growing as users are coming on board as well. The platform that SSC was able to offer us this year was to receive the departments that we had on the onboarding plans, and we are working with them every week to ensure we are planning the onboarding together and that the capacity of the platform is growing at the same time.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Maybe it's a misunderstanding on my part, but does the data centre refer just to a platform or does it refer to a bricks and mortar server space where this information is being stored? I am asking because if you're sharing links, it means this information is being stored somewhere that you can access. Is there a need to build...?

I know there are a number of data centres being built across Canada right now for private enterprises. Does this include a Government of Canada data centre where that information is housed?

[Simon Fradette, Director General of Specialized Services, Public Services and Procurement Canada]

Maybe I can answer that one.

Part of SSC's migration plan with the end state data centre is to establish data centres across the country, as you just mentioned. In managing the program, we rely on them to provide us with the infrastructure we need to deploy GCDOCS across the country, across departments and agencies. SSC is choosing one of its data centres to provide the environment.

Yes, it's the servers, it's a building per se, that they provide to us to make sure they host our services moving forward.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

If there's a need to expand that as part of the GCDOCS, then it falls under Shared Services to either build new or reallocate existing data capacity for GCDOCS.

[Simon Fradette]

Yes, you're correct.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

When we had the minister here before, we heard there are existing policies on duty to document. Could you describe the difference with respect to enforcement of a policy versus having something legislated around duty to document? What is that policy and what happens when people fail to meet their duty?

[Jennifer Dawson]

The policy right now has been in place for some time. It requires public servants to document decisions and decision-making as well as activities. We provide guidance to employees to help them interpret what that means.

That could be any records that are associated with dealings with the contractor, whether it's a request for an order or the bill of lading, the slip that proves that the goods were delivered. It can be minutes of meetings, for example, or records of discussion. It can be anything that shows the progression of decision-making, substantive changes in documents, or documents that are seeking approval for decisions. There is a definite requirement to create records, and guidance is provided on what records must be created and retained.

With regard to the question on compliance, compliance under the guidelines refers to the existing access to information legislation, which makes it illegal to destroy information that's obstructing the work of the access to information commissioner, so although we are providing the direction and policy that you must document and we're providing guidance and other tools, ultimately it's the legislation that imposes a penalty should records be destroyed with the intent of obstructing access to information by Canadians.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

So that policy currently wouldn't apply to ministers' offices?

[Jennifer Dawson]

No, it does not; it applies to public servants.