Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2022

[Mike Larsen]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, absolutely. One of the themes that our organization, FIPA, has been pushing for several years now is the idea that trust in public institutions is achieved through transparency and renewed through transparency. We live in an environment right now where people are exposed to lots of disinformation and misinformation, and having timely and accurate access to information is vitally important as an antidote to some of those narratives.

When we see that there are cultures of secrecy and when we see that there are systemic delays, for whatever reason they arise within individual institutions, I think it erodes trust in government as a whole.

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

Mr. Barnes, can you give us examples of countries that, compared to Canada, have had very successful access to information regimes? I think we can agree that in Canada it's not going very well in that respect.

Are there any models elsewhere in the world that we can learn from?

[Alan Barnes]

I must say that there are problems with any of these systems in any country. I've been pointing to the U.S. system. There are still major problems with that system. I guess it's a matter of degree and relative standings.

I think the Americans are doing many of the things well. They have a proper system for declassifying records. I think the United Kingdom has a much more effective system. It's not perfect, but it is much more effective.

I think Canada can learn from our close allies. It's not a matter of reinventing the wheel. We don't have to come up with something brand new.

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

Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Mr. Koltun, I'd like to ask you about Canada's immigration ambitions, as it plans to increase the number of newcomers until it reaches 500,000 people a year in three years' time.

Given all the delays and all the problems, do you feel that's a realistic goal?

[Andrew Koltun]

If the goal is achievable from an immigration end, the increase in immigration will result in an increase of application refusals, which will result in an increase of ATIP requests and then an increase of complaints to the Information Commissioner.

If the committee is looking to restore teeth to the Information Commissioner, one of the easiest methods is to remove the reasons that immigration applicants take up 60% to 70% of immigration commissioner resources with their complaints.

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

Thank you, Mr. Koltun.

My next question is for Chief Wilson or any other representative of her organization.

Is the lack of access to information causing any harm to certain Indigenous nations in terms of advancement of their claims or their own medium- and long-term development?

[Chief Judy Wilson]

Jody, can you follow that up? I can't hear very well sometimes when they are translating.

[Jody Woods]

I had a hard time understanding the question, actually. I'm so sorry. Do you think you could repeat or rephrase that a bit?

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

The indigenous nations you represent are having problems accessing information in their files.

Are they experiencing harm or delays in terms of infrastructure development? Is there any other harm that we should be aware of that the regulations could help you with?

[Jody Woods]

With respect to specific claims, they are seeing significant delays and barriers in being able to resolve long-standing historical grievances against the Crown. The resolution of those grievances could pave the way for cultural, social and economic development in those communities, so I would say “yes”.

Kukpi7, did you want to add to that at all?

[Chief Judy Wilson]

I would say it's an ongoing conflict of interest, because a lot of the information we're asking for is in regard to Canada's unlawful taking of our lands and resources, and causing violations or breaches. There's an underlying conflict of interest in regard to how the records are managed and accessed. We don't even know what records they have for us to access, as Robyn mentioned earlier, so there are ongoing issues with that.

We need the records to be transparent so that we can access them. They shouldn't be delayed for decades, months or years, because that's typically what happens. When we do get them back, they're all blacklined, in a lot of cases.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Kukpi7.

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

Next we'll go to Ms. Saks for five minutes.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you, I will start with this question for Kukpi7 Wilson, or perhaps colleagues on her team.

We heard a lot today about data sovereignty, which is great framing in an era when information—whether it's on the web or accessed other ways—is almost like a form of currency. As Kukpi7 Wilson said, it's also a pathway to justice.

Currently the federal government, through the Access to Information Act, protects information obtained in confidence from other governments, including aboriginal governments. However, the current definition is only limited to nine governments.

What's the importance of expanding this definition so that it's inclusive of all indigenous governments? What would that look like?

[Chief Judy Wilson]

Robyn, could you respond to that, please?

[Robyn Laba]

Sure.

There are hundreds of nations across the country. To pick and choose a few to be granted these rights or given the ability and time to develop their own internal access to information processes, so they have a chance to work these into different agreements with the federal government, as part of a treaty agreement or something like that....

Data sovereignty is a right granted to indigenous peoples and nations, period. You can't grant a right to select people in this group. It's a human right. It should be applicable to all first nations. They have to decide what that's going to look like as it pertains to their own governance structures, indigenous laws, protocols and priorities, I would say.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I understand. Thank you for that.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I would again like to ask either Kukpi7 Wilson or the colleagues with her today.... The federal government is currently engaging with indigenous peoples in regard to the act. What do you hope will be the result of that engagement? We talked about the challenges. There are 634 first nations at varying levels of relationships. These are complex and historical. There is much to unpack.

On the path to reconciliation, what do you hope to see come out of these discussions?

[Chief Judy Wilson]

I'll just say part of it, which is the free, prior and informed consent under the UN declaration that the government must subscribe to now.

Jody, do you want to add more about how we've done these before with the different types of consultations that the government puts out, especially around this information about the Access to Information Act?

[Jody Woods]

Sure.

In her opening comments, Kukpi7 mentioned Canada's commitment to meaningfully engage with first nations. We engaged during Bill C-58. We provided input into DOJ's engagement materials for indigenous nations with respect to the modernization of the Privacy Act, and we have engaged with Treasury Board Secretariat on this process, but I would have to say on those experiences, despite everybody being nice and everything, those experiences have fallen way short of not only what our expectations would be but also what we believe Canada's commitment is under the UN declaration. Everything is very late, very last minute. It's honestly a little like this process, when we had two days' notice to prepare for this meeting.

It was quite similar with the engagement with TBS on the access to information legislation. In that case it was wait, wait, wait; okay, we're ready. Now you have six weeks to survey first nations from across Canada and make a submission.

It's not a partnership, and that's what we need. That is our expectation.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have roughly a minute or so, Ms. Saks.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

I would encourage Kukpi7 Judy Wilson and your colleagues who are here with you today to do the following. We do have a habit of asking in this committee for additional written information, and I would like to know—we talked about the challenges and where it's falling short—if you would be willing to submit some of those gaps in writing and where you hope to see the results of the engagements. I and colleagues around the table certainly would want to know more.

I'm going to switch to Mr. Barnes for a moment.

In terms of historical records and archiving, I actually raised this issue at the last meeting. When current ATIPs are asking for historical records and the answer comes back that it is too long, too arduous and too difficult to deal with, do you feel that there should be another mechanism in place or a department that deals with historical requests outside of the purview of, let's say, live wire ATIPs?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Ms. Saks, if you don't mind, we're going to be coming through another round and I have you on the list. Maybe Mr. Barnes can think about that answer and we can move on to the next round, because we were over the time there.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

So this ends the second round of questions.

We are now going to start the third round. Each speaker will have five minutes.

Mr. Kurek, you have the floor, please.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm going to start with Mr. Larsen.

You talked in your opening remarks about a public interest clause. I'd invite you—and again, time is a precious commodity here—to, in about a minute, outline what that should look like and expand a little bit on what you shared in your opening statements about that idea of a public interest clause.