Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 5th, 2022

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

That's over 1,200 a year.

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Okay.

How many can you do, given the funding you have right now?

[Caroline Maynard]

Last year, we did 6,500. A lot of those were informally resolved.

We put all of our money into our investigations last year. We cannot sustain that. We have to help our corporate services, legal services and translation services.

Knowing also that this is increasing, our statistics show that if we don't get extra funding.... We may get to about 15,000 complaints within the next two years.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Bill C-58 allowed departments to reject ATIP requests with your permission. I see in the report that you received 36 requests and approved just two. Why were just the two approved, and was there a massive spike in requests for rejection last year?

[Caroline Maynard]

Most of the time it's because the institutions didn't do their homework before they asked for a permission not to disclose.

The duty to assist is very important. When somebody is asking for an enormous number of files, it's not because there are a lot of documents that the request itself is unreasonable. Sometimes the institution doesn't go back to the requester to try to scope it down and explain to them that they're going to receive 22 million pages. What we often tell the institutions is to start with the duty to assist and talk to the requester to make sure they've done those steps first, and then come to us.

I think that's a learning step. The ones we agree to give are because the requests were clearly made in bad faith. Somebody had already received all the documents and asked for them again—things like that.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Okay.

This is my last question.

Over the last few years, you've heard reports of departments deliberately evading ATIP requests by using code names. One case was that of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. They used a code name for the vice-admiral specifically to evade ATIPs.

Are there recommendations that we need to make to avoid this in the future?

[Caroline Maynard]

There is already a provision under the act that if you are doing anything—changing a document, erasing a document, destroying a document—it could be a criminal offence. If I see evidence of intentional measures to take away access, I can refer it to the Attorney General.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Would you be the one to refer that personally?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Now we'll got to Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you for being here today, Ms. Maynard. I think your testimony before this committee is always interesting and you give us a lot to think about.

My office has studied certain data. Earlier, you had mentioned the enormous number of access to information requests received by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. The analysis done by my office shows that access to information requests made to that department nine year ago amounted to a little less than half the total number of requests to federal institutions. Now, they represent nearly three quarters.

What could explain this huge increase in the number of access to information requests? We know from the earlier appearances by representatives of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration that the department has problems and is developing a new data processing system to automate the process. Do you think that will really help reduce the number of access to information requests?

[Caroline Maynard]

As you said, we receive an enormous number of complaints relating to access to information requests made to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, to the point that two years ago, I initiated a systemic investigation. From that, we saw that the information systematically requested by agents representing immigrants or refugees is often information that should be available on the department's portal.

It was as if each time you wanted to get information about your notice of assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency, you had to make an access to information request. It would be completely unreasonable to ask Canadians to make an access to information request to get information about their own tax file. And yet that is what is happening at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. To find out where their immigration application is, or the reasons why it has been refused, people have to make an access to information request, because that information is not accessible on the department's portal.

In response to the findings of my systemic investigation, the department is putting a new system in place that offers more information, as you said. As well, its officials have changed the way their decision letters are written, to offer more details. With time, we hope that immigration agents will see that the portal and these letters give them the information they are looking for, and the number of access requests will decline. That has not happened yet.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I am going to come back to the question of disclosure, another subject that may not be related.

In your testimony today, you talked about unreasonable requests in some cases, and you also said that officials should be smarter in dealing with their emails and electronic documents.

Can you tell us a little more about this? How can the government file electronic documents better, to facilitate the disclosure of information? Instead of having a chain of 100 emails, could be limit ourselves to two or three pages?

[Caroline Maynard]

My office has issued a guideline on this subject, to help people better understand their responsibilities in relation to emails. It is entitled "9 Tips for ATIP-Friendly Email Management".

We find that this is a problem even in our own office, in fact. We often allow employees a half-day to clean up their email inboxes because we have run out of memory. That should not be something that should be required; employees should do it systematically.

For example, if five of you are exchanging emails, we recommend that one person, the author of the original email, retain the chain of emails. Otherwise, if an access to information request is made and the five people have kept the chain, the five of them will have to respond to the request and you will have the same email exchange five times.

It would be preferable to establish clearer rules concerning who should keep emails and what documents are considered to be transitory. This does not mean deleting all the content in email inboxes; it means filing the necessary documents on a drive where they can be retrieved, instead of putting it on your own drive, where no one but yourself will have access in your absence.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I have one last question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

You're quite a bit over, Greg. I'm sorry, but we will have more time.

We just completed two full rounds. I'm just going to propose to committee members another rubric of time allocations for members. I propose to do another one in which we would have five and five; two and a half, two and a half; five and five. We would get through our rounds of questioning at approximately six o'clock. I want to have a couple of minutes after the rounds of questions for a couple of minor housekeeping matters. That would also let our witness off a little bit early.

Are there any objections to proceeding that way? Okay.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Can we just go back to the beginning and start over?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I won't quite do that. I will, maybe, give it one final call after doing the rounds so that no members are left without a chance to get all of their questions out.

We'll go now to Mr. Bezan.

You will have five minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, you just mentioned to Mr. Williams the issue of someone potentially trying to obstruct. I believe that's under section 67.1 of the act.

Have you ever prosecuted anyone for obstruction of an ATIP?

[Caroline Maynard]

I don't have the authority myself to do a criminal investigation. My investigations are administrative. However, as soon as I have evidence that a potential criminal offence has taken place, I can refer it to the prosecutor, who will then decide whether they do further investigation.

I've referred—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Do you refer it to the Crown prosecutor or the public prosecutor?

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm sorry. It's the Attorney General, for them to decide whether they want to pursue it.

I've done this approximately seven times since the beginning of my—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

They have to make a decision whether or not to prosecute, but you don't—