Thank you.
Unlike Mr. Rubin, I'm not going to talk about what needs to be done. I'm going to tell you how it exists and the reality of the situation for whistle-blowers, for people who are trying to find out what's going on.
ATIP is supposed to help, not be the guardians of the castle drawbridge who won't put it down. They're supposed to help, and they don't. Many ATIPs, and I've had this experience, are over a year old. I have one right now that is five years old. The statement I have from them is that they don't know when they'll get around to it; they have other priorities. That tells you the way they look at ATIPs.
I have also had an ATIP officer just bluntly say that if you have a problem, complain to the Information Commissioner. Why do they say that? It's because they know that the Information Commissioner is so overloaded that it could be two to three years before she or he and their executives get around to looking at the situation. You have a real problem.
Michael Dagg unfortunately has passed away now, but he was very active in the ATIP industry. I have a copy of a letter that was sent to him by archives. I have two letters, actually. One was on a particular request. They said they needed a thousand-day extension beyond the 30-day statutory time. The second letter I have is the one telling him it would be an 80-year extension. They put it in writing that it would take 80 years to get him the information.
The other thing that goes on is this. Michael and I were both dealing with Brad Birkenfeld and the Department of Justice in trying to get the documents that Brad gave them in 2008. We even had letters that said we were authorized to get the information. The Department of Justice would not give us the information. At two different times they said there were zero files. Another time they were suddenly up at 6,000-plus files. They were all over the place.
Finally, I asked them why they now, eight years later, have sent documents to CRA. All of a sudden there was this access request that came in from CRA, and they answered it. Well, they must have told CRA what to write. I asked them why they had sent it after eight years of doing nothing with it. They just simply said to me, “We don't understand the question.” I'm waiting for documents to tell me why they just sat and did nothing: “We don't understand the question.” That tells you the attitude they have. Of course they don't want us to have the information at all. They are really avoiding us.
ATIP officers are supposed to help, by legislation. They don't. For example, an RCMP officer says to me, “The ATIP branch does not answer questions. If I say I'm looking for particular information on a document, it's, 'If you have questions that you need to answer, route them to the media relations office.' ”
The other thing is that when I say what I'm looking for, I hear, “That's information. If you would tell me the document....” But I can't tell you the document. I can tell you what I want and what's on the document; I just can't tell you it's document 4 in this file. How am I to know that? The RCMP just turned me down—oh, and that one has gone to the Information Commissioner. It's in abeyance. It's been about a year now. Eventually it will get looked at. I know that.