Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's good to see Michael Wernick today.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to discuss access to information reform with you today. I'm Kirk LaPointe. I'm the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver, the business news outlet in British Columbia, and the vice-president of editorial for the Glacier Media chain of news outlets, the largest in western Canada. I also teach ethics and leadership in the journalism program as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. Part of my role is instruction in freedom of information law, and it's also, of course, part of my duties as an editor.
My familiarity with ATIP dates back to my roles in the 1980s and 1990s in Ottawa, as bureau chief of the Canadian Press and a host on CBC News Network, then known as CBC Newsworld. I've advocated strong use of ATIP in news operations that I've run at CP, then at Southam News, the Hamilton Spectator, CTV News and the Vancouver Sun, now at Glacier Media. I personally have filed more than 3,000 requests, and newsrooms I've managed have filed well more than 15,000.
I approach ATIP not as an opportunity to scandalize the government of the day but as an important instrument for the public we serve to understand our history, the decision-making of those who serve us, and the inherent complexities, challenges and dilemmas of public administration. The work I've done has shed light on everything from cabinet discussions on the War Measures Act to value-for-money evaluations across a range of departmental programs to the expenses to operate our official residences and much more.
My lens has been what I subjectively consider the public interest, and my instrument has been a law that I believed would illuminate the operation of government. Until Bill C-58, that belief took several steps backward. Recent reforms to the law have made progress in recapturing some of the original spirit of the law as envisioned by Ged Baldwin, the Conservative MP I knew from my earlier days in the national capital, but there remains a very long road ahead to fulfill his vision.
Too often in its history, users of the law have been made to feel they are being done a favour to exercise their right to know. Delays and denials have stretched credulity. Too many public servants have seen their role as protecting bureaucracy and political masters. Technology now permits the footprint of history to be erased and overwritten. Significant investments in the vast apparatus of their own communications by successive governments, in a form of self-congratulatory vanity press, have far outweighed any investment in ATIP.
I have been assisted in my perspective in the last decade by running for municipal office here in Vancouver in the mayoralty race. It might surprise you that I've gained a fuller appreciation of the perspective of the politician and the public and media environment that correctly gives rise in the era of social media to a defensiveness and a guardedness, to a lack of candour and a lack of acknowledgement of errors in judgment or decisions that went awry. I think I can speak more knowledgeably about where you sit, what conditions you endure and how it might affect what you wish to share with the public. I can understand the fear that comes with any environment of extensive disclosure, because it comes with admitting mistakes. Of course, everyone makes mistakes. That's why there are erasers on pencils. Even the Pope has given up on the claim of infallibility.
I would hope that you would also understand my appeal to the bigger picture, because the defensive culture of communications is a prime contributor to the suspicion and cynicism in our political systems that can give rise to the most vulgar of our social media and to appallingly low voter turnouts and participation in political parties. In denying access to the critical pathology of public policy, to the process of decision-making, media must resort to picking at the bones instead of the meat, which in turn cheapens our craft and our image. A few reforms might address both.
My own modest reform recommendations for advancement of the law arise from many of the basic impediments I've experienced.
First, there has to be an investment in resources to limit the delays in responding to requests. If government professes to subscribe to openness, it should also tell the public how much it spends on its own promotional publicity and communications, and then link that spending to the spending on providing better access to information service.
Proactivity is an important ingredient, but Bill C-58 takes only baby steps. Any reform ought to require proactive disclosure of a range of information in government, including internally conducted departmental audits 30 days after their completion, while the paint is still fresh, to understand, in something approaching real time, whether programs are actually value for money.
A second proactive area would include the simultaneous release of records—studies, correspondence, research, advocacy—that prepared departments and their ministers for policy announcements or the introduction of legislation, with an exemption, of course, for Privy Council confidences. For that matter, all contracted services to government ought to be subjected to the act's purview.
It is time for the blackout period on Queen’s Privy Council records to be at the most 15 years instead of 20, as is the case in my own province of British Columbia—or even 10. The longest political reign in my lifetime—that of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau—barely reached 15 years. Disclosure of minutes and records from their earliest date would rarely touch upon a sitting administration, but the relevance of information withers with time.
My last recommendation for this review would see this committee call out the abuses of the letter and the spirit of the law across the public service: the use of personal email or encrypted apps for government communication, oral briefings instead of written reports and the vesting of copyright with contractors to avoid disclosure, among many other things. Reforming this law can’t extend into these traits, but a recommendation of a review of public service law could curtail these chronic problems.
Thank you so much for your time. I am happy to answer any questions you might have.
