Evidence of meeting #149 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Is there no way to triage to say, “These are really complex ones that are going to take a large amount of time, but with an additional set of resources, we can really tackle them?”
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
That's the plan. We're going to be attacking the backlog with a special team starting this year. We also have an early intervention team we just put in place last year, and it is doing the new cases as they come in. Hopefully, we'll reduce half the backlog.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
In terms of going forward, it seems to me that not only would more resources for your office make things go more smoothly and resolve a lot of files, but addressing the culture of delay, which this committee learned a lot about in the course of our first study, would go a long way as well.
You've been on the job for 15 months. Your predecessor spoke a lot about the culture of delay. Have you experienced this culture as well?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
What we experienced in the eliminating of the fees is that requesters will often ask for larger volumes of documents. The institutions have not responded to those volumes as well as we were anticipating. Interestingly, the number of cases we have on delays and time limits is about 1,300 a year. What we're doing is negotiating with the institutions a date when the person would get their file.
We don't get that many complaints about time limits—not as many as I thought we would get—versus the numbers we see in the stats from Treasury Board. We realized that about 62% of the cases are done within 60 days of the request being received. That means there are about 27,000 to 30,000 cases that are over the 60 days, and what we see in my office are usually cases past 120.
I think people are pretty reasonable, and when they can negotiate a timeline that is reasonable for them because of the volume of their request, we don't see that many under 120 days, but over 120 days is usually when the requesters come to my office to make sure that it's received in a reasonable time.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I had put forward amendments for Bill C-58, as had a number of my colleagues, and there was that one provision where the government was sort of taking a step backwards, from my understanding—it was a while ago now—but the Senate fixed that. Is that right?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Okay. The Senate was able to do something that this House committee was unable to do, unfortunately.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Do you mean proposed section 6?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Yes. It was identical to what the House committee was asking for, if that's right. I'm not making that up. Is that right?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Proposed section 6, which was asking for the subject matter, the timelines...?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes. That disposition has been removed.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Yes, we had put something forward, and then the Senate put something forward and they were able to get it through.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Zimmer
Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.
Next up for seven minutes, we have Mr. Kent.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner, for visiting us again.
When Bill C-58 was originally tabled, your predecessor said that it failed to deliver on the government's promise of openness and accessibility and in fact said that it was “a regression of existing rights”. We know that it's in the Senate and there have been many amendments. How would you characterize the bill as it sits in the Senate today with those amendments?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Actually, there have been about 30 amendments made.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I would say that three-quarters of those amendments were requested by my office or by my predecessor. What I would say is that the current version of the act is definitely a better bill than what we have currently. The act right now is 35 years old, and what is being proposed in the amendments has made it better.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Would that mean that your predecessor's characterization of Bill C-58 as “regressive” has been transformed by these amendments or is it still...?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I think her call for changes has been responded to.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The act still needs to be reviewed, and I'm really happy that one of the amendments is that there's going to be a mandatory review in a year and, after that, every five years, because as everybody knows, we haven't been consulted for Bill C-58. That's one of the issues. A lot of those amendments came after the fact.
I'm really hoping that in the next year we will have the consultations that were necessary and that the examples we have through our investigations will be used to better the act. Especially, I think, some of the exemptions and the exclusions that have not been touched by Bill C-58 need to be looked at with our new digital world and what Canadians are requesting. I'm really looking forward to that process coming up if it's that.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Do I take from this that you would urge the senators to get that legislation back to the House as soon as possible and that the House accept it in its full amended form?