Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

Okay.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If you're willing, maybe you can submit written documents. I just want to make sure that we're defining the terms.

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

Sure. I'm happy to submit something written, but I'm not sure that I can do it justice in 20 seconds.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I may have another round, and if I do, I'll come back to you with that question.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You will have another round, Mr. Green.

I want to remind all members that we have some committee business that we need to deal with, so some of the questioning may be a little bit shorter as we get to the later part of the round.

You have five minutes, Mr. Gourde.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Francoli, there's a lot of focus on government culture and transparency. From what you've seen of the federal public service, do you think there's one department, in particular, that demonstrates more transparency, a department that could serve as a model?

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

I think there have been very different types of initiatives. They're hard to compare in many ways, because different departments and agencies are engaging in different functions. I wouldn't necessarily point to one as being the best.

Treasury Board has been leading the open government movement within the government, so that's a good place to look. I would encourage you to call someone from Treasury Board to maybe talk about the transparency initiatives, the Open Government Partnership, and of course how it relates to the access to information system as well.

Access to information was included in some of the early open government work engaged in by the Government of Canada in the context of the Open Government Partnership, and then it kind of fell out of place in the open government action plans.

I know I'm moving away from your question. However, I think it's quite subjective and a bit more nuanced to say that someone is doing a lot better, or one agency or department is doing much better, than the others. They each have their own very different initiatives.

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

Thank you.

Mr. White, you provided a pretty comprehensive list of recommendations. You talked about the sexual misconduct in the military and the fact that it could tarnish the reputation of the armed forces.

The armed forces are having trouble recruiting new members. Could your recommendations help the military clean up its image and, indirectly, help with its recruitment challenges?

[Patrick White]

Thank you for your question.

I certainly believe that in establishing confidence, not just through words but through concrete actions, you can turn a recruitment crisis into a recruiting success. The best spokespeople for the Canadian Armed Forces should be victims who say they have been heard, action has been taken and they strongly encourage every person who is listening to join the forces.

Instead, the response in many cases seems to be reprisal, dismissal and denial of information. To be honest, I wouldn't possibly expect to receive notification [Technical difficulty—Editor] that the naval reserve is organizing to have me released from the Canadian Armed Forces.

I don't understand. I've personally tried to share ideas on subjects such as how to promote our military history and recognition of Canada's armed forces among the general public. I can't say that many people in the department, especially the ones with higher authority, have ever really expressed interest in my ideas, at least. I certainly hope that isn't the case for others, but I'm getting the impression it is.

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

Ms. Francoli, what are your top one, two or three recommendations for the committee?

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

That's a good question. I have a list here that goes beyond that and reinforces what others have said. Having really good information management—looking at information management systems, including, as one of the previous witnesses said, things like storage, retrieval and digitization strategies for documents to deal with the paper holdings we have and ensure access to old files—helps to build the cornerstone for good access to information. Proper resourcing, a declassification strategy and limiting exemptions are all things I know you have heard about before. As well, we need good leadership and more proactive disclosure. I could keep going.

We need better education on the use of access to information and on how to make requests. That's something I know you have heard before as well. I was thinking of that as Mr. White was talking as well. There's no one to really help you figure out this complicated system if you want to make an access to information request yourself. It's immensely complicated.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

Thank you, Ms. Francoli.

Mr. Bains, online, you have five minutes, sir.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our guests for joining us today.

Mr. White, thank you for your service and for coming forward and sharing.

I want to start with you. If I can ask, are there any sexual assault cases that you feel have not been pursued because the victim could not get access to the information they needed?

[Patrick White]

That's a very difficult question for me to be able to answer outside of my own experience, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to confirm to you that absolutely, yes.

It has been very difficult, and I assure you, without going into further details at this time, that justice has not been served in my own personal circumstances. In fact, I have recently received information that the leadership of the naval reserve may be positioning to make things worse by shutting down further investigations and other things.

Rest assured, if it has happened in my case, as the old expression goes, dollars to donuts it has happened other times, I'm sure.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you for bringing that forward.

I will move to Associate Dean Francoli. In your experience, what challenges exist in ensuring the integrity and safety of the data that individuals provide to either a company or, in this case, a government? What safeguards need to be built into the design phase of an application to ensure it will protect users' data?

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

I'm sorry, but do you mean with the access to information request form itself?

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Yes.

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

I'm not sure I'm well placed to answer that one, in terms of protecting the users. For that one, I would suggest you might want to talk to the Privacy Commissioner. I noticed the commissioner hasn't been here yet.

Protecting the privacy of the request, the personal information, is kind of a first-come, first-served system. The analysts are supposed to be addressing them as they come in and not classifying types of requests.

I'm not sure if I'm exactly getting at what you're asking.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I will move on. Your research is focused on the way digital media has impacted three broad areas—citizen engagement and mobilization, governance, and access to information and data.

How has digital media impacted access to information?

[Prof. Mary Francoli]

I think it has had an enormous impact. Part of the issue we face with our Access to Information Act is that it predates digital. It was designed in a mediascape that was very different from the one we operate in today. As a result, instead of starting from scratch and building a piece of legislation that really reflects the contemporary digital media landscape and the types of information holdings we have, we're trying to patch up this old piece of legislation and make it relevant to the digital era, and doing that is tough.

When we look at the Centre for Law and Democracy's ratings of various pieces of access to information legislation around the world, some of the ones we see that come out ahead of ours are ones that are new. They have been developed explicitly to deal with these issues. Just the level of information and data we have available to us now, the way we store that, and the way we fail to keep up information and data holdings as technologies change, as software changes, make it really difficult to have good information management. As I said earlier, that's really the foundation of being able to employ the act successfully.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Okay.

This one could be for both of you.

One of our previous witnesses, Monsieur Drapeau, suggested changes for the Information Commissioner to help speed up the process of ATI: specifically, to introduce a one-year period before complaints can be brought before a federal court. What are your thoughts on his analysis?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We have five seconds, Mr. Bains.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm sorry. You'll have another chance in the two and a half minutes for the Liberals.

We now go to Mr. Villemure for two and a half minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Francoli, are there countries that are doing a good job when it comes to access to information, countries whose lead we should be following?