Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the committee for inviting the CAJ today.
I'm Nick Taylor-Vaisey. I'm the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. I'm here today in that capacity and do not speak on behalf of my employer, which is Rogers Communications and Maclean's magazine.
Today I'm speaking to you from Toronto, but our national board represents almost every corner of Canada. The CAJ is a truly national association of working journalists with members all over the country and across all forms of media.
Before I offer you our thoughts on how this committee could proactively improve the access to information reform on the table in the form of Bill C-58, I'd like to spend just a few seconds telling you about the CAJ.
The CAJ was founded in 1978 as the Centre for Investigative Journalism, a non-profit organization that encouraged and supported investigative journalism. Over the years we broadened our mandate and now offer high-quality professional development, primarily at our annual national conference, and also outspoken advocacy on behalf of journalists.
Our members include some of the most dogged investigative reporters in the country, journalists who have read freedom of information laws back and forth and have actively used them to inform their stories. They serve the public interest by digging up information their readers require to be informed citizens.
As you know, because you see it every day, excellent journalism reshapes public policy and improves people's lives. An effective access to information law allows journalists, and by extension the broader public, to be better informed, and at an even more basic level a good law serves the public's right to know.
This committee is well aware of the need for access to information reform. You've studied this issue exhaustively and have made important and necessary recommendations to the government. You now have before you a bill that the government has called “the most comprehensive reform of access to information in a generation”.
Of course, the Information Commissioner's opinion is different. She has said that Bill C-58 “would result in a regression of existing rights”. Heather Scoffield from the Canadian Press told you earlier this week that her Ottawa bureau, one of the most active in Canada when it comes to using the law—journalists like me are usually pretty jealous of the CP bureau's work—is “alarmed” to “see more ways for the government to turn us down and deny us information”.
The CAJ hopes the committee will work to change several damaging aspects of Bill C-58.
The first is that the government promised to expand the number of offices, including ministers' offices, that were subject to the act. Instead, Bill C-58 subjects ministers' offices to increased proactive disclosure. You'd be hard pressed to find a journalist who doesn't celebrate increased proactive disclosure. The problem is that governments control what is proactively disclosed, and a strong access to information law actually shifts that balance of power to the public. The CAJ urges the government to keep its election promise and subject ministers' officers to the right of access.
The second point is that Bill C-58 would allow departments to decline to act on requests deemed “vexatious” or “made in bad faith”. Both the Information Commissioner and this committee recommended that the government add a “bad faith” clause to the law. The proposed clause, however, could kill requests that don't include narrowly defined criteria, including the specific subject matter of the request, the type of record being requested, or the period for which the record is being requested.
Now, as journalists go about their work—our work—they will not always have all that information at their disposal. To dismiss those requests that lack only certain details as vexatious or in bad faith is an unnecessary overreach. The CAJ, like the Information Commissioner, urges the committee to remove these amendments in clause 6 from Bill C-58.
The third point is that Bill C-58 doesn't give the Information Commissioner effective order-making powers. The bill does technically enshrine order-making power, but the Information Commissioner has criticized the toothlessness of that element of Bill C-58. She's also suggested a different approach that would enact real enforceability, and the CAJ supports those recommendations. Of course, Mr. McArthur just spoke in some detail about that particular element of the bill.
The last recommendation is that Bill C-58 is a step backwards on fees for access. Early on in its mandate this government made a decision to waive all fees except for the mandatory $5 application fee. Bill C-58 reintroduces those fees and only says that they “may be prescribed by regulation”. Fees act as a barrier to access, and the CAJ believes the government should follow its interim directive of 2016.
Ultimately, journalists are hoping for an access to information law that shifts the culture within government, including that of both political actors and the broader public service. Bill C-58 will not get there. It adds new restrictions to the right of access and, outside of more government-managed proactive disclosure, won't instill a culture of openness by default. Journalists will spend more time clarifying or appealing requests, often with no clear path to a resolution, and sometimes at a significant financial cost.
Access to information coordinators, who are often caught between journalists and citizens who want information and government officials who don't want to give it up, will continue to have one of the most unenviable jobs in the public service.
Thanks for your time. Once the witnesses have finished their statements, I'm of course happy to answer your questions.