Information & Ethics Committee on May 14th, 2021

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Certainly a new portal sounds interesting.

Chair, I'd like hear, if we have any time, just what—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You are out of time, Ms. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Ah, there you go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I apologize. You may get a chance to come back to that.

Madame Gaudreau, we'll turn to you now for the next six minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Good afternoon, Commissioner. I am pleased to see you again and, especially, to speak to you in French.

Today, we are fortunate to have a forum to talk about certain things.

I find it reassuring that your budget has been increased and that you have been able to hire 27 new employees, including 21 investigators.

I also find it interesting that you have been able to process 4,060 complaints that were backlogged.

You have now received funding, and performance is often said to depend on funding. In practical terms, in order to do as much as you can and ensure that backlogged complaints are processed, what is missing in your organization?

I know you have a number of suggestions for us, so I'll turn it over to you.

[Caroline Maynard]

We are working very hard right now on the processes to make sure that we limit the amount of time we spend investigating. We are trying to deal with complaints as quickly and as informally as possible. What will really help us is to receive fewer complaints. This can only happen if the government as a whole provides information to Canadians on a voluntary basis, without waiting for them to make access to information requests.

I will be submitting a special report shortly on access to information requests for Immigration Canada. This study has opened our eyes to the question of whether the access to information system is the appropriate platform for people to use to obtain information. Let me clarify that this is not just about Immigration Canada, but the government as a whole. There is no question that departments can provide information on a voluntary basis instead of waiting for requests. In fact, the access to information process should be a formal process to obtain more information after first consulting with the agencies.

In principle, government information should already be transparent and voluntary. This would certainly help the whole access to information system. It would reduce the number of complaints to my office and the number of access to information requests made to departments.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Since I don't make access to information requests, I find the subject really interesting and it piques my curiosity. From what I understand, there is a barrier to access. You said that the government should share information on a voluntary basis. In principle, given that it's taxpayers' money, the information should be readily available.

What types of requests do you see consistently?

[Caroline Maynard]

Canadians are very inquisitive and they know their rights. Some topics come up in the news, such as how much money the government has spent to deal with pandemic issues or vaccine contracts. Of course, Canadians are curious about this. So they often make access to information requests about matters in the news.

When I meet with the ministers and deputy ministers, I tell them that their access to information teams know what topics come up frequently. Logically, when the same topic comes up two or three times, departments should understand that the information in question should be provided on a voluntary basis. For example, briefing notes are often requested. The titles are published, but the notes themselves are not. Therefore, why not post them voluntarily on the website?

My recommendations are along those lines.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You use the word “voluntary.” I wonder why it has to be voluntary. I was part of a non-profit organization, and I have to say that we really had to open all our books and do some very specific analyses.

Does the Access to Information Act make it voluntary, when we are talking about taxpayers' money and public spending? Is there not a loophole and should we not be asking questions about the act and the obligation to disclose information?

[Caroline Maynard]

I use the word “voluntary” because part 2 of the act deals with proactive disclosure of information. I'm trying to distinguish between those concepts. I don't think the act should require us to provide specific information. I think the government can go beyond that and disclose information voluntarily without a provision in the act requiring it to do so. That is why I use the word “voluntary”.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That is interesting.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

You have just less than a minute, but you do have some time.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Would you have another recommendation for us, Ms. Maynard?

[Caroline Maynard]

The government could change a lot of things. Information management is one of them. I think there is delinquency in that regard.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

What do you mean by “delinquency”?

That word brings a lot of things to my mind.

[Caroline Maynard]

When we are told, in response to an access to information request, that there are 6,000 pages of documents on a particular topic, we have to ask ourselves: are there really 6,000 pages of information or are there 5,000 pages of copies and 1,000 pages that are really relevant?

The government definitely needs to manage information well, especially since we now work from home. It needs to document decisions well and limit duplication. It also needs to cut down on email chains, as we often see with access to information requests. These emails may contain a bit of relevant information, but the rest is not useful. If the government were to improve information management, it would reduce the time needed to respond to access to information requests.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Maynard.

[Caroline Maynard]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We will turn to Mr. Angus now for the next six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Maynard, for being with us today.

I want to talk about the changing nature of work in the civil service, with everyone working from home and working through Zoom meetings. Are there protocols in place to record what happens in a Zoom meeting, or is everyone just making whatever notes they think matter to them? How do we know that what happens in that meeting is transcribed so that it could be available for access to information requests?

[Caroline Maynard]

It's really up to the department. There is a policy right now in the government that there is no legal obligation to document what goes on during meetings. I don't think there is anybody taping videos, but there should be notes or minutes taken. It's the same as when we were working at the office and had a group of people in a meeting. At the end of the meeting, it was very normal to have minutes of all the discussions and of the decisions that were taken.

I am hoping that this is what the institutions are doing. We haven't had an investigation at this point on that subject, but there is no legal duty to document. It's really a policy within the government, and it's one of my recommendations in the next review of the legislation.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Whenever we have technological change, it does create loopholes. I remember that eight or 10 years ago, when people started to use PINs, I was told by political staffers that they only used PINs because they couldn't be tracked, so they never put anything in an email, only in a PIN. Now a lot of decisions are made during Zoom calls, so are you formally recommending that we should have a policy in place so that we can track what happened in meetings that were done on Zoom?

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm recommending, yes, that there be a duty to document any decision, whether by video, notes or minutes. The institutions and departments are making big decisions, bold decisions, and decisions that impact Canadians, so there should be a way to track those decisions, whether it's in writing or through different methods of recording.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for that.

Has the COVID crisis affected turnaround times in the department because people are not at work? Has that slowed down response times?

[Caroline Maynard]

We have definitely seen some delays caused by the pandemic. People don't have access to their offices. Especially for institutions that are working remotely and cannot access paper files, there have been some issues.

We also see problems with the speed at which you can access your computers and ATIP. Normally there are a lot of documents, even if they're electronic, so we have units telling us they have to work at night and on weekends, when there are fewer people on the server, and that made it very difficult for a lot of institutions to respond to their access requests.