Evidence of meeting #36 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 files.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Is it realistic to think that by keeping this high number of employees, the inventory of processed cases can be eliminated?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Obviously, having additional staff helps us run better. We can see it in the results I distributed to the committee. We've always said this. A certain number of employees is needed to process the files. As I said at the start of my presentation, we were trying to reduce the inventory. It's apparent that, this year, we're starting to be able to reduce the inventory.
In theory, we could likely request funding to hire 100 additional people to conduct investigations. However, it's not realistic. Federal institutions must be able to respond to the results of our investigations.
There are currently fewer outstanding files. At the same time, we're still receiving responses from government institutions. We now have a good balance. We've hit our stride when it comes to the balance between government institutions and investigations and the institutions' capacity to respond not only to the investigations, but also to access to information requests.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Do you intend to submit a request next year to maintain the same number of employees until the inventory of processed complaints has been eliminated?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes. We'll submit another request next year to ensure that the inventory of complaints is consistently reduced.
In terms of maintaining the staff, it should be noted that we've spent and we're still spending a great deal of time training people. We therefore want to maintain a certain level of efficiency. If we're able to keep people next year, we can continue the process.
We're already more efficient. People have already received training on our investigation method, computer system and case management system. Our efficiency gains would likely increase even more exponentially if we kept the staff in place and if we didn't lose time by hiring and training new employees.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Is there an urgent need to eliminate the inventory of complaints before the government changes the access to information legislation?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It would be ideal to reduce the inventory of complaints as much as possible before changing the system, especially with the older files. Despite everything we've implemented this year, we'll keep and continue using certain procedures if we change to an order-making model.
We've established a simplified model for administrative files. We're doing a great deal of mediation and obtaining many results. We're therefore settling as many cases as possible before conducting a complete investigation.
We developed this model according to the model at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which works this way. Members of that office trained us so that we could be ready to transition to an order-making model.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Before my speaking time is up, I want to thank you for the patience you showed earlier when we discussed other committee matters.
Thank you.
November 24th, 2016 / 12:35 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Thank you.
Conservative
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you, Chair.
It's great to see you again, Commissioner.
In my previous life, when I was with the Saint John Sea Dogs, a hockey team, and before that in different businesses, we had quite an extensive budget process. If somebody came to me and said they needed an amendment or supplemental budget money to the tune of 30%, I'd be very concerned and we would look at that.
That said, from a business perspective, I think the first thing I would ask is, have you have looked at the process internally? Did you do everything you possibly could do internally to alleviate this problem? Could you share with us some of the initiatives you took before you came here to drive down that number of complaints?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I am in the last year of my mandate. I have been doing this work for a very long time now. As I said, when I first started, we started making a lot of changes in order to become more efficient. That really bore fruit for the first several years until our actual complement was cut significantly over the following years.
This year in particular, we have taken two main initiatives that are really bearing fruit in terms of efficiencies. In the first one, we implemented the Federal Court of Appeal decision of last year, which was a seminal decision in terms of administrative files. What the Federal Court of Appeal decided was that there had to be much more rigour in terms of institutions asking for long extensions. We developed a simplified process. We have developed some forms.
That's been extremely efficient in terms of changes to our results. I actually have these results with me here, so I can share that with you. In terms of where we were last year versus this year for these administrative files, last year at this time we had closed 293 files, and this year we closed 461 files. That's in part as a result of extra people, but it's also a result of what we've implemented with the federal government institutions. We have been using interest-based mediation very significantly this year. Again, last year at this time, we had closed 328 files, and this year we closed 708 files using this process.
We are actually making a significant difference, both on processes and with the additional people. That is what we're doing.
I've personally gone through all the old inventories in terms of our national security files and special delegation files. That's over 400 files.
Over the summer, we went through all these files to identify portfolio approaches and identify clusters of issues and clusters of complainants. We're working on that now. Two of my directors actually went through the rest of the inventory, and we did the same. We looked at all of the files that could be closed quickly. We are also reviewing all the files when they come in to identify the ones that we can quickly resolve because the issue is simpler. We go through all of those as well.
At this time, frankly, we monitor all the files. We monitor what's being done. I think we've done everything we could in terms of trying to sort out these files as quickly as we can. Some files do take a very long time. There's no question about that. Some files are 100,000 pages thick and, in some instances, there is no way to reduce them, so those take a very long time.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Your complaint inventory goes back to what year? I know that here you have 2011-12, but do you have complaints back...?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I have two complaints from 2007-08. Those complaints are the same. They're related. They've been investigated. Hopefully, they will close soon. In terms of the entire inventory, I can tell you exactly. I think I have a graph here with that information.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I have two from 2007-08. Those are special delegation funds. They have a national security issue. We were waiting for a Federal Court of Appeal decision on the interpretation of a specific section of the CSIS act. That just came down a few weeks ago. Those two files will be completed.
From 2008-09, I have 22. I have 13 with the CBC. Those are legacy files. From 2009-2010, I have 27.
It goes on, but the bulk is really in 2015-16, in which I have 1,000, and 2016-2017, in which I have 737.
I can provide this to the committee if you wish.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We have it all in terms of what's there. I know what these files are. I know where they're at in terms of their resolution.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
In days or months, what's the average length to process a complaint?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We always report on that in our annual report. What we do, usually, is based on two indicators. We look at them from the time we get them, because we have a lot of old files, and we look at them from the time that we can assign them to someone. My median turnaround time from the date of assignment for administrative files is 38 days. That's from the time I assign it to an investigator. For the exemption files, it's 56 days from the time of assignment.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
How does that compare to the provinces? Do you look at times look at that average rate compared to the provinces to see if you're above it or below it?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We don't look at that, mainly because we don't really have the same types of files, by and large. At the provincial level, they deal with hospitals, municipalities, and school boards. At the federal level, we deal with the Canada Revenue Agency and very complex audit files, and national security files with CSIS, CSEC, and the RCMP. We don't have the same types of files, and all of the types of legislation are different. For the jurisdictions where they have order-making power, usually their timelines are better than ours, that's for sure.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Okay. We've gone past the time. That finishes the seven-minute round.
Colleagues, we have about 15 minutes left in the meeting, and we need to go through the votes at the end. I don't anticipate there's going to be any reductions in the budget, because we don't want the Information Commissioner to be borrowing more space from other agencies. Unless someone signals it otherwise, we'll take it right to the—
Mr. Erskine-Smith.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I was just trying to sort this out. You're asking for $3.3 million, roughly, and if I'm working this out correctly, you're suggesting that you'll close an additional 1,061 files with that money, so roughly we're looking at $3,160 per complaint if you break it down into—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
That's not how I was going to proceed with the meeting. You'll get another chance to ask those questions.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I see. Okay. I thought you were closing down. Fair enough.