Evidence of meeting #22 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was requests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
You mean how much money I want?
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Sure.
I was on public accounts previously. Very clearly, the question is—
12:05 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We don't know. We're just starting to look at numbers, and we think it's going to be over $3 million.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What do you need to get the job done is essentially the question I'm asking.
May 16th, 2022 / 12:05 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
We got $3 million to hire 25 people. I will need at least another 25, so a minimum $3 million, but that doesn't pay for my corporate services to support these people and the translation bureau that we need to publish more reports and publish more guidelines.
All of this has to be really well calculated this time, so that the impact of increasing my office is also not felt on the other sectors.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
12:05 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Thank you.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Before we go back to Mr. Bezan, I'm going to exercise my prerogative as chair. I have a few questions.
Commissioner, this is the first time that I've had the opportunity to question you as commissioner. However, I did question your predecessor early in the 42nd Parliament, and what I found striking about your opening statement was just how little the issue seems to have changed over the past several years.
I think this goes to issues that span successive governments. The issues that were alive and presented to the committee by your predecessor came from the time before. Here we are, and you said you have been sounding the alarm bells that there is a collapse of the system or an overwhelming of the system.
This is exactly what Commissioner Legault complained about in 2016. We did an investigation of the whole system in that committee, and witness after witness after witness talked about an overall pervasive culture of secrecy that has existed for decades. Can you comment on that?
12:10 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes. We are seeing similar issues. It hasn't gotten better.
I think some departments are definitely better. However, overall, Madame Legault said it and we're saying it again: Canadians are asking for more and more information from their government. The requests have increased by 225% in the last six years. The resources to support that system have not gone up to support it.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
What will it take for government to actually live up to the promise of openness by default?
The experience of the witnesses we heard in those studies—and it appears not much has changed—is to deny. That seems to be the first reaction: Which grounds can we use to deny this ATI, or how long can we drag out this ATI? These are things that haven't changed, it would seem, for a very long time. I'm sure I could look back into testimony at this committee 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and find some of the same issues.
What is it going to take to change the culture of government to actually buy into the concept of openness by default?
12:10 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
As you know, culture takes a very long time to change. We definitely need more serious leaders with directions to their people, to their public servants, to disclose by default, as you say. We need a more robust legislation. We need to reduce the impact of some sections.
Some of the exemptions, such as section 21 on “advice or recommendations”, are overly used and abused throughout the government, because anything is advice and anything is a recommendation, but really, the fact findings.... There are so many things that we can release on those documents where section 21 is being used. That's one of the recommendations I made in my submission to TBS. Section 21 definitely needs to be limited to the very specific cases so that the institution does not have the discretion anymore. They have to apply the act as it is.
There are ways to make the act more specific and less easy to interpret. It's supposed to be more specific.
We also need to encourage discretion. The use of discretion for legal opinions, for example, is really rarely used. Even if the legal opinion was written 60 years ago.... Sometimes I'm questioning whether it is really important still to protect that document at this time, but it's very difficult for me to say to a minister, “Your use of discretion is not reasonable.”
We have to look at the facts. We have to look at the public interest. That's another thing that the act doesn't really provide. The information we are hiding, should it be released because there's a public interest element to it...?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you.
I've gone way longer than I had intended, but I have a specific question just really quickly.
Your predecessor actually described Bill C-58 in quite a remarkable meeting that took place at this committee and suggested that it was a step backward, not forward. Do you agree with her?
12:10 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
At the time, I did agree that it was not enough, but we did make a lot of changes. Unfortunately, on Bill C-58, there was not a lot of consultation when it was first tabled.
If you look at the first draft of Bill C-58 and what was actually passed, there were a lot of changes, and those changes were actually very helpful for my office and for the system as well. It was a good start.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
A good start, okay, but more work to be done....
We'll go to Mr. Bezan.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You stole a little bit of my thunder there. I also want to go down this path with the commissioner about what types of legislative changes you need to give you the power and the authority to ensure that transparency is being respected, that information is being shared in a timely manner and that we're not seeing an abuse of authority, where government is trying to use secret or top secret classifications or cabinet confidences for things like issues surrounding the purchase of PPE and declaring that's a national security issue when you're buying things such as masks, gloves and respirators.
I just ask again.... As a committee, we want to be looking at doing things proactively. What exact legislative changes do we need to incorporate into the act to ensure you have the power to do everything to compel the department to report and to make sure that fines are levied and whether or not it's put into the hands of the right authorities as to whether or not there need to be charges laid?
12:15 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I would invite you to read my submission and recommendations to Minister Duclos back in 2020 with respect to the legislative review and also the system as a whole. I have very specific recommendations in there, but the main issue—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Just for the purposes of this committee today, can you highlight again what the top-level changes are that have to happen and why the Treasury Board and the government haven't acted upon those recommendations?
12:15 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
They were supposed to issue their report early this year, but apparently it's been delayed until December.
Very specifically, there are things in the act that need to be changed. The 30-day timeline is fine, but the timeline doesn't take into consideration the consultation that happens between institutions. There must be limits on the number of consultations or the amount of time those consultations take, because right now the extensions that are being taken by institutions are often because of those consultations, which are not mandatory, by the way. The institution does not have to consult, but often they feel that they have to.
We need to have access to those cabinet confidences in my office, so that somebody—as I said earlier—who's independent from the government can review them and make our Canadians confident that the documents are under cabinet confidence.
The ordered power that I have is really helpful, but if an institution does not respond to the order—it hasn't happened yet—I don't have any mechanism to make sure that my order is being respected. I would like to have a certification process so I can go to the Federal Court and get the order certified. That would have another impact on the institutions, if they refuse to do anything about the orders or respond to the orders.
Also, all the exemptions and exclusions need to be reviewed with the goal of reducing their impact and making them more strict so that we are really limiting the reduction to the minimum.
We need to expand the act, too, to subcontractors and to third parties that are providing public services for the federal government. Right now they are not subject to the act. I think that Canadians would really appreciate that.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you.
Talking about the issue of cabinet confidences, is that something that's happening on an increasing level along with the use of “secret” and “top secret” so government can wiggle their way out of meeting a request for access to information?
12:15 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
As I said earlier, it's really difficult for me to say because we do not have access to cabinet confidences, and requesters will often agree not to request those. They will let it go because they know that nobody can tell them if the documents that have been redacted as cabinet confidence are actually cabinet confidence. We can't look at them. We haven't seen an increase or a decrease because we don't see them.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
When I was over on the national defence file, we saw a practice there where department officials were using code words and code names to get around access to information requests. Have you witnessed that in other departments?
12:20 p.m.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I don't believe that I have. I've seen acronyms used, but—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
We're famous for acronyms. Every time you start a new portfolio, you have to learn all the acronyms first.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you, Mr. Bezan.
With that, we go to Ms. Khalid for up to five minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you so much, Chair.
Thank you, Commissioner, for keeping up with our questions and for providing such great answers. I appreciate that.
Online summaries of completed access to information requests are removed after two years. Do you think it would be helpful for the government to keep them online longer, or what is the justification for those two years?