Information & Ethics Committee on May 14th, 2019

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You mentioned 100,000 access to information requests. Every year, 2,500 complaints wind up on your desk. That means 2.5% of requesters are dissatisfied with the response they received, for whatever reason, whether it's the response time or something else. So when you launch an investigation in response to a complaint, it takes a long time.

When people file these complaints, are they aware of the cost involved in a single complaint? Maybe they think it costs around $150 or $200, but it could actually be between $4,000 and $5,000, or even $6,000 and $7,000, depending on the complaint. It's not like people are chipping in, either. This is a free service.

[Caroline Maynard]

There's no cost to them.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Are people generally satisfied with the responses they get from you, or do they say they would have liked to know more?

Maybe 25% or 30% of them end up happy, while the rest feel that the responses they got don't help them move their case forward.

Do you have any data on that subject?

[Caroline Maynard]

Most of the people we deal with are satisfied with the office's services.

Of course, no one is ever happy with the turnaround times. But, as you say, the office is here to uphold access to information and ensure compliance with the act. In many cases, we're able to resolve the complaint just by explaining to people what we have in front of us. We can see the access to information files. When the complaint reaches us, we request the file, and nothing is redacted in the documents, so we can see exactly what was taken out and what was disclosed to the person. Often, people realize that the exemption was applied properly, or that it's a legal opinion, and they're satisfied. Essentially, people are looking for an opinion from someone who's outside the institution in question. They trust our investigators to tell them what's going on. We're able to resolve quite a lot of files that way.

However, there will always be people who aren't so satisfied because they want more. They think they should get everything, but unfortunately for some, and fortunately for others, I'm bound by the act. As it stands, the act sets out the exemptions and exclusions, and my job is to make sure that its provisions are applied properly.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Are there any Canadians who use the findings from your investigations as a basis for suing the government in other areas, or in an area where they feel they've been wronged?

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm not aware of any such cases.

There are cases that end up in court after the documents are disclosed, of course, but I don't think that's based on my recommendations or my office's findings.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

When you receive a complaint, do you put it on the pile until its turn comes, or are the complaints classified by how fast you could deal with them? For example, do you put complaints that you could deal with quickly in one pile, and complaints that require specialist intervention in another, based on the nature of the complaints?

[Caroline Maynard]

That's sort of the system we've put in place. Right now, we have a triage team that looks at requests as they come in and figures out if we can resolve them.

I would say that it's much easier to resolve a case when the analyst from the institution has just finalized the file and the complainant knows exactly what they want. However, when we call someone about a file that's been in our hands for five years, sometimes it's not useful anymore. Sometimes the analyst who processed the request isn't with the institution anymore. It's old information that probably isn't relevant anymore.

That's why we try to deal with requests as fast as possible when we receive them. Naturally, with some complaints, we know as soon as we get them that they'll require a much more detailed formal investigation.

We do some triage. We've only been using this system for about six months.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

What's the ratio of permanent employees to external consultants? Is it 75-25, 80-20?

[Caroline Maynard]

Right now, of the 60 investigator positions, only five are held by external consultants.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

There are 60 investigator positions, out of 90 total. What are the remaining 30 positions?

[Caroline Maynard]

Those are staff from corporate services, communications and legal services.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

So every year, you would need an additional 25 full-time investigators to handle all the requests.

[Caroline Maynard]

That would be ideal. But if Parliament passes all the provisions concerning the act that appear in the bill currently under study, we would need much more than that. The Senate has suggested amendments we weren't aware of. That could have a big practical impact on us.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Monsieur Gourde.

Next up is Madame Fortier for five minutes.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for your presentation. It's clear that you're putting in a lot of effort to deal with all these cases.

If you don't get more funding, what will the consequences be, apart from delays?

[Caroline Maynard]

It would hurt not only my office's credibility, but the government's credibility as well.

Access to information has become a quasi-constitutional right, because we want Canadians to have access to information so they can question certain institutional decisions and ultimately have confidence in the government when it makes decisions that affect them.

The longer people wait, the less able we will be to respond to their complaints. I can't give complainants an immediate answer as to whether the institution has correctly applied the provisions of the act and fulfilled its obligations or if, on the contrary, we believe they're entitled to more information. By the time their complaint gets processed, the information has lost its relevance. People need information when they request it. The longer they wait, the more it hurts the government's credibility and undermines public trust in the government.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

You said it's important to be able to train staff in other departments. What would training various resources involve?

[Caroline Maynard]

That's not part of my mandate. It's the government that should take on this project. But I would say that there are definitely needs in that respect. Several institutional coordinators carried out a study in collaboration with the Treasury Board. They looked at the possibility of professionalizing access to information analysts and creating an agency. I don't know what's happening with that project, but it certainly deserves funding.

This agency would provide training and create a pool of staff who could go work in different departments. The idea is that the departments could share this staff. When the rail accident happened, Transport Canada was inundated with access to information requests, but it didn't have the capacity to handle them all. In those kinds of situations, analysts could be deployed to the various institutions.

The end goal would be to have a central agency to help all institutions handle access to information requests. The agency could train and hire staff. I could contribute by providing guidelines and explaining our processes, to make everyone is on the same page.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

So you would explain how you operate within the limits of your mandate.

[Caroline Maynard]

That's right.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

I have another question about something that came up earlier.

If Bill C-58 passes, will you be able to halt certain investigations that are under way, or are you absolutely required to finish processing those cases one way or another? Once the bill passes, will the act give you that ability, or would there be some kind of grandfather clause preventing you from doing that?

[Caroline Maynard]

The new act will apply to new complaints only.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

You have to find a way to deal with the existing complaints one way or another.