Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 30th, 2017

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Do my colleagues on the Conservative side have concerns with beginning this in January or February?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

It is one of the more pressing issues before the House at the moment, and without wanting to get into the slots that may or may not be available, I think we would like it to be a priority. That's the position.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We're finishing an act, two studies, PIPEDA, and border security. I think that's a lot of work to do before the end of the year, and to commit to doing it upon returning....

I think we're—

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

No, it does make sense. We're here to work, but if it were possible, we would favour doing it immediately. Studies are very often interrupted by significant periods of time, so the record stands until the report is written anyway.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We have an amendment before us right now that we need to proceed on.

Is there any further debate?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Could we reread it after the conversation, so that we'll be able to...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

A recorded vote has been asked for, so we'll have a recorded vote.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Would you mind if Mr. Erskine-Smith reads it one more time, Chair, just so we have it?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We would be deleting everything after “in the context of the five-year review of the act;”. Everything thereafter would be deleted, and instead we would say, “and that this study begin in January or February, 2018”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We'll put it to a recorded vote. This is on the amendment, just to be clear.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0 )

Now we can proceed to a recorded vote on the main motion, as amended.

Is there any debate? We've already kind of debated this, but is there any more debate?

We'll move to the recorded vote, then, because it's been asked for.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0)

That's it, so it does pass. That will happen in January or February.

Thanks, everybody, and my thanks to the witnesses as well.

We'll start off with Canada Border Services Agency.

Thank you.

[Robert Mundie, Acting Vice-President, Corporate Affairs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Robert Mundie, and I'm the acting vice-president of the corporate affairs branch. I have with me today Dan Proulx, who is director of the access to information and privacy division at the Canada Border Services Agency.

This division is responsible for overseeing the access and privacy functions at the agency. These include administering and fulfilling all legislative requirements of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act related to processing requests; interacting with the public, agency employees, other government institutions, and the offices of the Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner regarding investigations and audits; and implementing measures to enhance our capacity to process requests.

I will briefly outline the CBSA's access and privacy functions and the way the agency performs against established service standards and will highlight some of the successes and challenges we experience in our administration of the acts.

As the second-largest law enforcement agency in the federal government, the agency is responsible for border functions related to customs, immigration enforcement, and food, plant, and animal inspection.

The agency administers and enforces two principal pieces of legislation: the Customs Act, which outlines our responsibilities to collect duty and taxes on imported goods, interdict illegal goods, and administer trade legislation and agreements; and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which governs both the admissibility of people into Canada, and the identification, detention and removal of those deemed to be inadmissible under the act.

The agency also enforces 90 other statutes, many on behalf of numerous federal departments and agencies.

Mr. Chair, given the numerous daily interactions the agency has with businesses and with individuals on a variety of matters, we are no strangers to requests for access or personal information. We have approximately 62 employees working in the ATIP division, 44 of whom are solely dedicated to the processing of privacy and access to information requests. The agency also has an internal network of 16 liaison officers who provide support to the ATIP division within the agency's branches at headquarters and in regions across the country.

The CBSA's operating expenditures to run its privacy and access to information program totalled approximately $5.1 million in 2016-17, with $4.3 million dedicated to salary and $800,000 to non-salary expenditures. With respect to volumes of requests received under the Access to Information Act, we received just over 6,250 requests in 2016-17, which is the second-highest total for a department within the Government of Canada. Under the Privacy Act our numbers are equally significant, with approximately 11,600 requests.

Furthermore, in the first half of this fiscal year, there has been a 15% increase in the number of requests received under both acts. These high volumes are largely attributable to individuals seeking copies of their history of arrival dates into Canada.

In fiscal year 2016-17, 78% of privacy requests and 45% of access requests came from individuals seeking their traveller history, a report we generate that is used to support residency requirements for programs administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and by Employment and Social Development Canada. Analysts from the ATIP division have direct access to the database that houses these reports. Also, the review of these reports and the application of the law are standard, which allows our analysts to complete these requests without needing to obtain recommendations on disclosure from departmental officials. This greatly reduces the time it takes analysts to process these types of requests.

Of all the requests completed last fiscal year, the CBSA was successful in responding within the legislated time frame in more than eight out of 10 cases under both acts.

As indicated in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's annual report last year to Parliament, 70 complaints were filed against the CBSA to the Privacy Commissioner. Given the large volume of requests that we process, this number is a very small proportion of the total requests closed, representing less than 1%.

A similar result was seen under the Access to Information Act. A total of 125 complaints were filed with the Information Commissioner, representing less than 2% of the requests completed by the CBSA. However, we aspire to better serve Canadians and look to find ways of improving our service.

Our success reflects the agency's commitment to ensuring that every reasonable effort is made to meet obligations under both the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. The agency strives to provide Canadians with the information to which they have a right in a timely and helpful manner, by balancing the right of access with the need to protect the integrity of border services that support national security and public safety.

Innovative approaches and careful planning will help the agency to continue the success into the future.

In closing, we welcome the review of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and will fully support and adopt any new measures that are introduced by the Treasury Board Secretariat following passage of legislative reforms.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity for us to provide our input into your study and for welcoming us here today. I look forward to the members' questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you.

Next up is the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for 10 minutes.

[Michael Olsen, Director General, Corporate Affairs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair, my name is Michael Olsen. I'm the director general of corporate affairs and chief privacy officer at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Accompanying me today is Audrey White. She's the director of access to information and privacy at IRCC.

I thank you for welcoming us here today and giving us an opportunity to discuss Bill C-58, an act to amend the access to information and privacy acts. IRCC has had the opportunity to appear before this committee on two previous occasions to discuss this review.

Mr. Chair, I want to discuss our department's performance first and then move into a discussion about the proposed amendments to the act.

In 2012-2013, the department received 30,124 ATIP requests. Since that time, the number of requests has more than doubled. Over the course of 2016-2017, we received more than 63,000 ATIP requests, representing a 23% increase from the previous year. For the current year, we are again seeing a 23% increase in the number of requests received.

In 2016-2017, our last year of reporting, IRCC received more access to information requests than any other federal institution. IRCC represents approximately half of all ATIP requests received by the Government of Canada.

Despite this increase in volume, IRCC was able to maintain a compliance rate of 79% for access to information requests and 68% for privacy requests. The ATIP division has been efficient in managing the volume of requests received in order to meet the legislative deadline.

IRCC has launched a number of initiatives in an effort to improve its performance and to address current challenges. Although these initiatives have increased productivity year over year, we continue to create strategies aimed at decreasing our backlog and improving our compliance rate.

The majority of ATIP requests received and processed within our department concern immigration case files. The department holds personal information on millions of individuals and collects significant amounts of personal information annually, due to applications for citizenship, passports, permanent and temporary residence. This in turn has a direct effect on the growing number of ATIP requests received by IRCC.

Mr. Chair, a total of 165 official complaints against the IRCC were filed to the information and privacy commissioners last year, representing less than 1% of all requests processed during that period. The duty to assist is taken seriously at IRCC. The ATIP division notifies requesters of possible delays in service. We act proactively to minimize the number of complaints.

ATIP also offers diverse training in person and online to IRCC employees on the importance of safeguarding privacy and protecting personal information. Mr. Chair, as the chief privacy officer at IRCC, I'm pleased to announce that we'll be having our second annual privacy day on November 1. This will provide a forum to spotlight key privacy issues in a complex and rapidly changing technological environment. Most importantly, privacy day demonstrates our continuous efforts to develop a culture of privacy institution-wide as well as our commitment to increased privacy vigilance. At IRCC, protecting privacy and personal information is paramount.

Bill C-58 provides new proposed subsection 6.1(1), which provides government institutions the ability to refuse requests that are vexatious or in bad faith or missing key details. This new power is discretionary, and IRCC will continue to exercise judgment appropriate to the spirit of the legislation.

As I mentioned, IRCC is committed to the “duty to assist” principles embedded in the act. We already process requests that lack specific details, either because they are unknown, unnecessary, or unspecified. Where necessary, ATIP works with requesters to clarify the scope of the request and to obtain missing information. We would only consider refusal in exceptional circumstances where, for example, all “duty to assist” options had been exhausted, processing the request would be impossible, or processing the request would impose a significant burden on IRCC that could not be reasonably managed through time extensions or other provisions of the act.

Mr. Chair, I thank you again for the invitation to provide IRCC's view on this important subject and for welcoming us here today.

I look forward to any questions you or the committee have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you. That was very timely. You only used up about five minutes, so there is a lot more time for questions.

First up is MP Erskine-Smith for seven minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much for all this information.

Mr. Olsen, I'll start with you just to get a comparison.

We heard some numbers from the CBSA in relation to their budget and the number of individuals who are focused on ATIP. Perhaps you could provide us with the same information.

[Michael Olsen]

Yes. Our staff complement varies over the year. We have casual employees and we have full-time employees. Roughly, there are about 80 full-time equivalent employees in ATIP at IRCC. Our budget is around $5 million.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's interesting.

When we talk about compliance rates, in both of your testimonies you indicated fairly high compliance rates. Is that in reference to the 30-day prescribed limit in the act, or is that also in reference to asking for an extension and meeting the time limit within the extension?

[Michael Olsen]

If the extension is asked for and granted, then that would count as the time limit.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay, so 79% of the time it's not within the 30 days. Then 21% of the time you're actually beyond what you've even asked for in terms of an extension from the Information Commissioner.

[Michael Olsen]

The extensions that are granted in cases have to be justified. If we go beyond 30 days, that 30 days does have to be justified.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I understand, but it's 21% of the time you're beyond what you're able to justify, I guess.

More resources appear to me to be one answer. When it comes to the act itself, can you point me to provisions of the act that would help limit your burden or help you to deal with the increasing number, the doubling in the last five years or so?

[Michael Olsen]

The doubling really has been due to the fact that obviously privacy is a growing concern of everyone. I think everyone realizes that. Ten years ago it was not the concern for the public that it is now. People are interested in knowing what information the government has on them. As I said, we have a lot of information on a lot of people. They know the Access to Information Act and they know how to use it, so they make requests of us.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Maybe I'll be more specific.

We've heard some testimony suggesting that proposed section 6 is drafted in such a way that it would be too exclusionary and too complicated for a layperson to ask for information. Presumably, it was drafted for a reason. You guys are sitting in the department and may have an explanation for why you think it's a good thing or a bad thing.

Do you think that proposed section 6 is helpful? Beyond “vexatious”.... I don't want to go there, because I think everyone agrees—well, the Information Commissioner agrees—that this is fine. Are there other provisions in proposed section 6 that are helpful?

[Michael Olsen]

To my mind, again, proposed section 6 is probably not going to hurt the volume growth. A lot of the ATIP requests we receive are related to case files. People want to know about immigration case files. They've made an application for permanent residence or temporary residence, and they want to know what we have in that regard.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'll put the same question to the folks at the CBSA.

Do you view provisions in the bill—I'll use proposed section 6 as an example, but perhaps there are others—that would help reduce the current burden?