Information & Ethics Committee on May 31st, 2016

[Jennifer Stoddart]

There was a counter-narrative.

[Doug Letto]

It was a counter-narrative.

Many of the people who came before us felt that public bodies, in some cases, were not welcoming of their effort to find information. We discussed it not only in terms of what we were hearing in our province, but we also looked at guidance from other places. We quickly came to the conclusion that the citizen who is coming to a public body for information is coming because they she wanted it. They want some information. They may not know exactly what they want.

As the holder of the information, there is a certain obligation to help them arrive at that happy moment where you can say, “This is what I want.” The first part of it is actually to engage with that person right from the start, to respond to them quickly and say, “Mr./Ms. Smith, we have your request for information. We're starting the process.”

We actually recommended that instead of your having this letter or application going into the system for information and then your hearing that you either will or won't get the information, there be progress reports at specific times. I think that within 10 days there's a requirement that an acknowledgement be sent out.

Part of the duty to assist is not just to say, “You can't have this information because of section whatever”, but to explain to people in language they can understand why that's the case. More importantly, you need to to work with people on their requests to say, “There is some confusion about what you are asking”, and to engage with that person to help them get to a place where they get what they want or what they think they want.

One of the good things that's happened is that all the access coordinators have now gone through customer service training.

[Clyde Wells]

We specifically recommended that they take the approach that they were dealing with customers whom they wish to attract back for the service, and that they had to provide good customer service. I think we spelled that out in the report.

[Doug Letto]

It's to have a good relationship from the start of the request all the way through.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

How has it worked so far? Do you have any data on the impact that this change of—

[Doug Letto]

I don't. What I have is an anecdote from a person we dealt with in the access to information system and whom I spoke with recently. This person talked about how the coordinators now feel they are on firmer ground in dealing with requesters, that they now feel that the legislation supports them in trying to help find conclusions to a requester's request for information.

That is a pretty good place to be.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

You mentioned coordinators. Previous witnesses have said in this committee that giving greater political autonomy and independence to coordinators could serve a certain purpose in terms of how they process requests and how they act. I was wondering if your committee delved into that and looked at the role of coordinators and how they can be better protected, so to speak, within the legislation.

[Doug Letto]

I'll mention one point and then pass it on to Mr. Wells and Ms. Stoddart.

The feedback from the coordinators and the role that we laid out for them is that they feel much more empowered in their position. Sadly, many of the people who were in coordinating positions were the most junior employees in the department or agency, and they always felt reluctant to tell directors and others that they felt the information should be released. They didn't feel they had the pull to do it within the hierarchical structure of the organization.

The legislative recommendations that we made and that were implemented have changed the field and changed the culture around it. They now have a legal right to be able to pursue people to get information that the law says they should have, unless there is a reason not to provide it.

[Clyde Wells]

We made specific recommendations to enhance their stature within the organizations for which they were the coordinators. The indications are that it is working, as Doug said.

I spoke with somebody from the commissioner's office about four or five months ago, and he gave me an update that led me to believe that the commissioner's office had received very well the recommendations we had made and that they were working with the new legislation to make it effective. The efforts the commissioner's office has made, the improvements they have made to their website, and the information they have on it indicate that they have totally bought into the new approach and are working to make it effective.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Perhaps the committee should know that at some points we probe very deeply into the process, not just the law, but what is really happening.

One of the innovative things we did was to poll anonymously the coordinators and the participants in the system to see how autonomous they felt and what the problems were from their point of view. That certainly informed our suggestions for the coordinators.

One of the rather shocking things we found out was that, at the time of our hearings, access to information requests were coordinated through a central point, and they were put through a kind of triage system. As I remember, the triage was media—i.e., it is Doug Letto asking, and the names were kept on—constituents, and members of the House of Assembly. Then they were distributed to specific cabinet offices and so on.

[Clyde Wells]

They went up to the cabinet minister's executive assistant. If the request originated from a member of the House of Assembly—I guess with the emphasis on opposition members—or came from the media, or....

What was the third one? I have forgotten.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I think it was constituents or different electoral....

[Clyde Wells]

Organizations....

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Like different ridings....

[Clyde Wells]

Any of those requests had to go to the minister's office before they could be released.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

People were labelled as they made the requests. We heard many insinuations of people thinking that somehow their access to information requests were treated in a partisan way.

I don't say we ever got proof of that. I remember that the minister honestly thought that this was helpful in speeding up the process, and that may be so. However, the public certainly perceived—several people were very involved in the access to information system—that the reason they weren't getting the information was that they had been treated in a partisan way.

That is being changed now, and I think it gives much greater satisfaction.

[Clyde Wells]

It was perceived as a filter through which all the information going to those requesters was filtered before it got out, and that is probably the practical result of it.

[Doug Letto]

The request now.... If Mr. Lightbound went to you, the requester's name would be on it for the coordinator to use, but anybody else who is involved in helping collect the information from that request would have no idea who is requesting the information.

[Clyde Wells]

Coordinators are required to keep it confidential, and all of the dealings with the requester must go through the coordinator. The deputy minister or the director can't do it. There are some possible exceptions where it may become necessary, when they are requesting information directly related to that individual and the name has to be used, but other than that the requester's name is confidential.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Good.

Let's go to Mr. Kelly, then.

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

Early on in our committee's work we heard from representatives from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of National Defence, which are the recipients of the most ATIP requests by some margin. There were concerns about their ability to process requests in terms of human resources. I seem to recall that each department, probably about 1% of each department, is devoted to dealing with information requests. We've also heard much in the way of the need to change culture. We've heard it today. We've heard almost every day about the need to transition from a culture of secrecy to one of openness by default.

In part, the way we can most clearly address the need for openness by default is perhaps proactive disclosure. Some have commented that the existing problems with backlogged information requests and the challenges these departments have in processing these requests owe to our not being open by default and not proactively disclosing information. If we were and did proactively disclose information, we wouldn't have as many requests to process and we could make this whole system much easier.

Along with the change to your model in Newfoundland and Labrador, what has happened at the actual department levels in terms of proactive disclosure and establishing the culture of openness by default?

[Clyde Wells]

We dealt with publication schemes and recommended that there be provision for proactive publication. I don't know what the statutory provision is, but there were clear recommendations.

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

Perhaps you could also address whether these steps have had a measurable effect on the number of complaints to the commission, or ones that have required orders to be made.

[Clyde Wells]

The information we have is that the number of requests for information has increased fairly significantly. That's to be expected. When everything opens up, people will start to try it out. I would expect the number of requests to go up and then to settle back to a reasonable level. There may, indeed, be even more requests than there were in the past, because many of the people who came before us said that in the past they hadn't even bothered making the requests because they knew they wouldn't get the information. When people have that kind of attitude because of the culture involved, the number of requests would not be high.

There's been an increase. I can't say there's been any basis for measuring a decrease on the basis of implementation of publications schemes. It's perhaps too early to tell just yet. Perhaps in a couple of years, you would get better information on that. It would be interesting to see that.

[Doug Letto]

I checked last week with the agency that we reported through. The number of requests has gone from about 700 the year before the new act to about 1,400 so far this year. The number of pages released to the public has increased from 16,000 to about 54,000. I don't know why. It may well be because we've suggested that more information be made available. It might be because people aren't being dissuaded by estimates of large fees. No one really knows the reason for it. I expect it will settle down to some reasonable place.

In terms of concerns about the demand this will put on agencies, it sounds crude and rough to say it this way, but I don't think access laws are intended to allow public officials and politicians to sleep at night. That's not the purpose. The purpose is so that the citizen, who wants to know what their government is doing in their name, can have access to that information.