Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 24th, 2022

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Even within the existing budget, in theory without allocating more money, there's an opportunity to have an increased number of people actively involved in the process.

I want to talk a little bit around the technical aspects. One of my biggest frustrations, and I'm sure members on the committee can share this, is getting scanned PDFs back that are unsearchable and the unsearchability in the way in which we collect data. Mr. Chair, you will recall this Liberal government had a minister of digital government, and that just disappeared.

When big data is released to him and his clients, is there a difficulty there as well in being able to find the information accurately, given the way in which it's scanned, rather than being presented as searchable PDFs?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

If that question is for me, in a typical request that we would put in, normally we would indicate whether we wanted to have the records electronically or sent by regular mail.

If it is sent by CD-ROMs and we have a number of them, the act provides that the information coordinator inside each one of the departments or federal institutions has a duty to assist. It belongs to you to make your requirements known, and it belongs to them to make sure they do whatever is necessary to ensure your requirements.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm familiar with that. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that one of the things we often hear at this committee is that the information needs to be digitized and it's hard to find. I'm wondering if maybe there are some system-level failures, but perhaps that's something for the actual department and the commissioner.

I'll move on to my next question.

In your commentary entitled “Access to information: A quasi-constitutional right in peril”, you state that your reforms include service fees, or fee for service. Wouldn't this change create greater barriers to individuals making the ATIP requests, given that it's a constitutional or quasi-constitutional right?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

Well, the act provides at the moment for an information coordinator in a given department to waive fees. If there was an issue of fees being an obstacle to obtaining and exercising the right of access, it's already provided for.

The report indicates that last year, I think roughly $30,000 worth of fees had been waived. That provision exists in there. Otherwise, up until fairly recently, there was a $5 fee for the first 20 years that the act was in place, plus—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you. I have only a minute left. My apologies for being curt.

I'm hoping that you as a lawyer may be familiar with the case of Dagg v. Canada—or the Minister of Finance—in 1997. In the decision, the Supreme Court held that the overarching dual purposes of access to information are to, one, “facilitate democracy” by ensuring that “citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully” in democracy; and two, to have “politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable” to citizens.

Do you believe that the continued inefficiencies of access to information are the result of the government prioritizing self-preservation over the democratic processes and accountabilities to its citizens?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

The short answer is no, I don't think so.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay.

Those are my questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green. You were well under time. I appreciate that.

We'll move to the five-minute rounds now.

Go ahead, Mr. Gourde. You have five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Drapeau. Your experience is very helpful to us.

If the access to information regime is inadequate, can it have a negative impact on Canadians or Canadian institutions?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

The answer is yes, absolutely.

The access to information regime is the only legal way for an individual like you or me, or an organization, to access information controlled by the government. It's the only available legal avenue. People can submit requests for all sorts of reasons: medical, economic or industrial. They can request information for reasons related to tourism, civil proceedings and so on.

If people don't have that right or if they can't exercise it within the prescribed time frame, they are negatively impacted.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Take, for example, an RCMP or a police investigation into an organized crime group that had infiltrated a government department in order to obtain a permit of some sort.

Say the investigator submits an ATI request for the list of Canadians who had been granted the permit in question, but has to wait four, five, six or seven years to get a response. Would that kill a potentially fruitful investigation?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

If I understand your question correctly, a request for a list of individuals who had been granted a particular type of permit would certainly be denied outright because the request relates to people's personal information.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

What happens if it's the RCMP submitting the request or the request arises from a court order?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

The RCMP is not required to go through the Access to Information Act to obtain information. It will seek out the information in its official capacity using its network of police services and other federal institutions. It doesn't need to use the act at all.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

You said the wait times were unacceptable and cause a lot of frustration. In an ideal world, what would be an appropriate amount of time to wait for the information requested?

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

In an ideal world, the 30 days currently prescribed would be enough time to respond to a relatively simple request, one that doesn't involve a mountain of records from a particular department. I'm talking about a clearly laid out request dealing with a specific topic. Whether they were 30 business days or calendar days would have to be determined.

Keep in mind that 70% of requests are answered within the prescribed 30 days, but a request for more time counts as a response. I think that's a good standard.

Personally, I'd like the time frame to be a bit less rigid, so that the 30 days were working days. Hopefully, more people could obtain the records they had requested or receive an extension request within that time frame. Ideally, the requester would receive a response within 30 working days.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Unfortunately, the other 30% of requests take way too long to process. Have you seen cases where the request took an outrageous amount of time to process, five, 10 or even 20 years? You don't have to name any departments, of course.

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

I haven't come across any that took 10 years, but I've seen five years. A lot of requests take between one and five years to get resolved, and that's true for a number of departments.

Take, for example, the complaint we filed in 2012, which I mentioned earlier. It took five or six years for the commissioner to ask us whether we still wanted the records in question. We said yes. We weren't going to change our mind and drop the complaint because the commissioner made us wait six years. We wanted to get the records; we wanted that information.

After we heard from the commissioner, we had to wait another few years to get the records. We received the information we had requested 10 years after our initial request.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

You said requesters could wait four, five or even six years. That can really hurt the work that investigative journalists do. They have to submit ATI requests for some of the stories they work on, and that's information Canadians deserve to know.

[Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau]

The wait times are due to all kinds of things.

In some cases, the delays don't have to do with all of the requested information. Some requests are prickly because they involve information belonging to third parties such as companies, which are, themselves, subject to an access to information regime.

A third party might be an airplane manufacturer or a food processor. Third parties tend to ask for more time to process the request. They may also take the matter to court or refuse to disclose commercial information. Third parties often cite the exemptions prescribed in section 20 of the act. Those tend to be the cases that drag on.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

Thank you, Mr. Drapeau.

The chair's job is easy when everyone sticks to their allotted time.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Fergus, you have five minutes, sir.

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

We want to make your first real meeting as chair a pleasant one, Mr. Chair.