Evidence of meeting #5 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was institutions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Okay.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Commissioner for coming in and sharing about your office and the important work that you do.
Help me a little here. I've made ATIP requests before, and I've been involved with receiving them. I've always found the process to be quite good, but I've always wondered about those documents. Whether it's a word that was spelled wrong or some document being missed, what procedures and protocols do you have in place to ensure that those documents that might be vital to an access request don't fall through the cracks?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We call those investigations of no record. You will receive a document and you know something is missing. Often the applicants will say that there should be something more. We will ask the institutions, “What search was done? What are the words that were searched? Where was it done? Who did them? Who was tasked with finding those records?”
Sometimes we find it's either an analyst who was a junior analyst, who didn't ask the right person. We often find them. When we don't find them and there should be something.... I think the former commissioner issued a report at one point when a crucial decision was made by a federal institution, and there was no record, just the decision. Clearly, there was a lack of recording.
We currently have a policy on business records. You're supposed to keep records of your decisions and of how you make them, but doing that is not legislated. It's really difficult to manage that. I think it's something that should be imposed on institutions, the way we do for financial expenditures. We have to have evidence showing that we searched for the best, most reasonable travel arrangements, let's say, and then we have controls in place to make sure the authorities are signing that. It should be the same thing for very important business decisions. There should be mandatory recording of those.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
Thank you. That's always been a question, and because I have the commissioner in front of me, I appreciate the opportunity to ask it.
We live in a world where not that many years ago the primary forms of communications were letters and phone calls, and then letters and emails, and now there are text messages, WhatsApp, and other secure messaging services. I know there are a tremendous variety of ways in which people communicate with each other. There's an understanding within professional workplaces that there are reasonable ways to communicate back and forth.
What steps have your office and investigators taken, and what tools do they have to make sure that text messages and WhatsApp messages are covered in this? Sometimes the gap can be very much due to the fact that it went from an email chain to a text message chain, and then went back to email, perhaps after a decision was made over a text message.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It's difficult. The former commissioner issued a report on this as well, and I agree with her. Those apps should not be used for government business. We emphasize that when we meet with public servants, with their leaders, and with deputy ministers, but it's really difficult to know when it is used or not. Often it's by mistake that we find out.
If we see evidence that there was something other than emails—and personal emails are another one—we will push and get that information. Again, I have all kinds of tools. I'll order the production of tapes. I can order the production of documents. I can ask that they research these texts and these other apps, but it's one of those things, and either we're lucky or we're not. We hope that the government is implementing its policy of not using these apps for business records.
Conservative
Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB
I think this will increasingly become an issue. For example, each of us around this table has a Facebook page. My Facebook page is owned by me but it's used for parliamentary purposes. There's an ambiguity even in the ownership of that information and its different uses.
I appreciate that. I'm sure there'll be lots more work done in that regard.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
Mr Kurek, I'm sorry, but that's your time.
Mr. Fergus will be our last member asking questions, for five minutes.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Ms. Maynard, I would like to begin by thanking you for your presentation and your work as the Information Commissioner.
My questions are related to those of Mr. Gourde and Ms. Shanahan about the incredible increase in the number of complaints received this year. Can you tell us something about the nature of these complaints? Can you put them into categories?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes. As I was saying just now, most of our complaints are about administrative delays. The complainants find that the extensions being requested are too long or that the institutions have exceeded the 30-day time limit without providing an explanation or sending a letter. People complain to us so that we can look into why there was no response to the access request within the time limit specified in the act, which is to say, 30 days following the request.
This year, we received approximately 4,900 administrative complaints of this kind. The others pertain to the use of exemptions. These are investigations into refusals, where access to the information was refused on the basis of various provisions of the act. For these, we investigate whether the provision of the act was applied correctly and whether additional information should have been disclosed. There are usually fewer of these, but it is generally more difficult to investigate them.
As for administrative complaints, we often try to come to an agreement with the institution about when it will be ready to disclose the information.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
That raises a question.
Are the institutions required to inform you when they request an extension of the deadline prescribed by the act?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
We ask them why they exceeded the prescribed time period. They will often cite the number of pages at issue and the number of consultations required of them. Sometimes, it is a complex subject such as national security and archives. These are the kinds of reasons that lead to a failure to meet the deadline.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Are you and your colleagues more or less satisfied with the cogency of these extension requests? Would you say that a half or a third are justified?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
It's hard to say.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, for example, will disclose the information within a certain time period. It might be 15 or 20 days late, but the institution receives an incredible number of requests. Nevertheless, it has a very large team and the requests are often minor. They are not requests for access to 1,000 pages. In other institutions, however, the response to each request involves more than 1,000 pages, so it is really difficult to say.
As I was saying earlier, when we find that a problem is systemic, we begin by contacting the deputy minister. At these meetings, I have come to realize that often, the deputy ministers do not even know that there is an access to information problem. Some deputy ministers ask for information and statistics at each of their management meetings, and genuinely want to be informed. Others wait until the problem is brought to their attention.
I prefer not to wait and I go to see them. At each meeting, I point out problems with their institution, the things we have noticed in our investigation work and improvements that they could make. Delays are often the result of a shortage of resources or poor information management. Issues like these occur frequently.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
When the departments respond much later than the specified time frame, they surely must inform you in advance.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
They must ask for an extension within 30 days. They have 30 days to assess the request and the number of files. After that, they advise us if they cannot comply within the 30-day period and request an extension of 30 or 60 days. I recently received an application for a four-year extension for a request involving 75 million pages. It is up to us to determine whether these extensions are reasonable.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
There was a request for 75 million pages? Does that meet your definition of a request...
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I have not yet completed my investigation.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
Mr. Fergus, that's your time.
I want to thank you very much, Ms. Maynard, for coming today and being so obliging in your opening statement, and then, of course, for taking questions from members around the table. We certainly appreciate your participation here today, so thank you.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
With that, for the next round, we'll suspend to go in camera, so I ask that we take the next two minutes to clear the room as quickly as possible.
[Proceedings continue in camera]