Thank you very much, Chair and committee members, for this opportunity to appear before you today.
Like Ken Rubin, I've been here several times before on this and other issues, and on this issue it was dating back 20 years. What I'm going to do today in my statement is summarize 18 key changes needed to the act and the enforcement system, and then I'll welcome your questions about them.
The 18 changes are mainly based upon this committee's unanimous June 2016 report, the former information commissioner's March 2015 report and the current commissioner's January 2021 report, which have all called for key changes and, of course, the December 2021 report by the government, which was the result of its public consultations conducted last year that made it clear that all stakeholders support 10 key changes.
The first changes needed are to the rules. The Access to Information Act is broken, as all of these reports and the two other witnesses have noted.
Initially it should be changed to cover fully all government institutions, publicly funded institutions and public-purpose institutions, including cabinet offices. That's been recommended by many stakeholders and experts and commissioners. As well, the other recommendations I'll be going through have also been called for by stakeholders for years.
Second is to require every institution to create detailed records of decisions and actions. There's no reason that this cannot be done and uploaded onto a searchable website as meetings and communication decisions are ongoing in government. It's very simple to do and to set that up as an electronic system.
Third, there should be routine disclosure of not only those communications, meetings and decision-making processes, but of all records online that can be disclosed and are in the public interest to disclose. There should be routine disclosure on a searchable online database, which would reduce the need to make requests.
Fourth, there should be requirements for all institutions to respond to access requests as soon as possible, with permission required from the commissioner to extend beyond the 30-day time limit and a maximum extension of 60 days.
Number five, all exceptions to disclosure should be clearly and narrowly defined, and limited to areas in which secrecy is actually required in the public interest.
Number six, the commissioner should be allowed to review all denials of disclosure and to order disclosure if it would not cause harm or is in the public interest. If records are not disclosed because of a public interest exception, they should be required to be disclosed no longer than 20 years later, and less than that for cabinet records.
Number seven is that anyone who does factual or policy research for the government in an area not covered by an exception should be allowed to speak to the media publicly about the topic, their findings and their conclusions without being required to first seek approval from anyone.
Number eight, the act should be changed to allow for filing of an access request from anyone, even if they don't live in Canada.
Number nine, the $5 request fee should be eliminated and institutions should be prohibited from charging search fees for records that have not been maintained in a way that facilitates access.
However, no law enforces itself, so changes are needed to strengthen the enforcement. The enforcement system has been revealed to not be strong enough to stop delay and denial of the public's right to know.
Therefore, as number 10, the commissioner first should be given explicit powers to require systemic changes in institutions to improve compliance with the act, including managing records effectively.
As number 11, the commissioner should be empowered and mandated to penalize violations, with a sliding scale of fines depending on the seriousness of the violation, for things like intentionally obstructing access, not creating records, not maintaining records properly or delaying responding to a request.