Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 7th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It appears that we've lost Mr. Jolly. Let's hope we get him back as soon as possible.

Carry on, Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

He might have succumbed to the wait for his longest ATIP, or maybe he's reading it; maybe it's finally arrived.

Has the failure of the government to make ATIP deadlines affected your ability to accurately report on what's happening in government?

[Dean Beeby]

Yes. We call it “deadline abuse”. Some departments, like the RCMP, don't even acknowledge the receipt of your request. There's no clock even ticking for some limbo requests. I think there's a reflexive mode in departments to automatically take the longest stretch that they can get away with because it just gives them more manoeuvring room, rather than working out exactly how long processing will actually take.

The Information Commissioner has come down on departments for this. The result is that requests from journalists in particular are just held in abeyance for months and months, sometimes years and years—as I've given some examples of—until the information is no longer embarrassing, dangerous or whatever.

Yes, it does indeed affect us.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Conte, while I have the same question, I guess what I'd ask is, do you believe that this damages public trust in media where there could be public interest in an issue and there's no substantive reporting on it in media because they're not able to get the information that would substantiate or flesh out the story?

[Andrea Conte]

I mean, it definitely affects the content of stories, and the political content of stories as well, if we're talking about state information.

I'd just point out, on the RCMP topic, that not only is the RCMP not acknowledging.... I had a communication from them five or six years after I filed the request. They sent me a letter asking me if I was still interested in my request.

To your question, just by comparison, in the United States the act privileges public dissemination of knowledge. If you have an urgent issue of government activity that you need to report on, you can be at the top of the queue in terms of expedited processing, which here we don't have.

It surprises me that not more journalists are coming before this committee, especially of legacy media institutions, where this is their business: the public dissemination of knowledge, especially as it pertains to the state. There is an absence of this, which speaks to a lot of the points—to a disinterest in access to information from journalism as a whole, and, as a result, to the quality of journalism about the government.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

That's right.

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have two seconds.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I guess I'd just say that the challenge is that if members of the public don't know what they don't know, then it's tough for them to be agents of change in the system. I know there's some frustration, in that this issue has been studied by successive Parliaments and multiple committees, but I think it's important, and I appreciate the testimony of the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Tromp, I see that your hand is up. Is it a technical issue?

[Stanley Tromp]

I'd like to speak briefly to this question of delays.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm sorry, sir, but unless it's asked in the next round by Ms. Khalid.... It's questions and answers here.

Ms. Khalid, please go ahead for five minutes. Thank you.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

It's an interesting conversation today from the witnesses. I appreciate your feedback.

The Information Commissioner was asked how much of a drain vexatious, malicious or frivolous ATIPs were on her office and had this to say:

It has a huge impact. My office has only three people dealing with our own access requests. Last year, we received a request that ended up with 33,000 pages. We ourselves had to request an extension, because we are subject to the act as well. We don't want to say “no” to access requests, but sometimes we are realizing that it's difficult to negotiate or to try to understand what is behind the request.

I am sure that institutions, as I said, all have their one or two or three requesters who are difficult or who are asking for information where, at the end of the day, you wonder, “What are you going to do with those 22 million pages?”

I ask you, Mr. Beeby, as a person with an investigative journalism background—and I have ultimate regard for the role of journalists in being the watchdogs of how government operates and how we provide services to Canadians—how do you feel about this current influx of what I like to call “blogger journalism”, where an opinion becomes...or is maybe trying to change public opinion or is taking away from that public trust of the organization that is the government?

Do you think that has an impact on how ATIPs are being responded to right now?

[Dean Beeby]

I'm not sure I see the connection there.

To me, as a journalist, access to information is a way to avoid opinion journalism or journalism that goes “he said, he said”, and you try to work out something in between. When you call it “blogger journalism”, I assume you mean opinion journalism, that sort of thing.

To me, access to information is an answer to this. We talk about all the misinformation in blogs out there and trying to persuade people one way or another from using misinformation. Access to information is an answer to that problem. Giving data that has been provided by governments and vetted gives a hard, factual basis to investigative journalism.

That's why I have used the act for my whole career, because I think it's a more reliable, less challengeable source of information for investigative stories.

I'm not sure that answers your question.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

It does. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Beeby.

Mr. Conte, you mentioned earlier that you received an article that was redacted by CSIS. My understanding is that, under the act, publications are exempt from redactions, because, well, they are already public. Can you help us understand what exactly was redacted? What were you seeking in an article that had already been published?

[Andrea Conte]

If you're a researcher today wanting to research Canadian security state records somewhat expediently, you have to look at research that has already been done, because a historical request.... The CSIS archive and the RCMP security service archive are at LAC under volume RG146. These are a transfer of records from CSIS that they still have control over. All the records there are from previously released.... You can access a collection of previously released access to information packages, while you wait for your own access to information request to happen.

Those transfers happened in the 1990s. There used to be a CSIS reading room you could go to. I never went to it, because I was too young at that time.

In those access to information release packages that were processed in the 1990s, there are several redactions that tell a story of how CSIS was redacting and censoring documents then. They speak to the argument of LAC over-censorship, of the Office of the Information Commissioner over-censorship, both then and now, because even today, as—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but I was specifically asking about that one instance when you received a redacted public article.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We're over the five minutes.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have one last question, Chair, if you'll indulge me.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You know how much I hate cutting people off.

Go ahead.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair. It's a very short question.

Mr. Beeby, you talked about cabinet confidence earlier. As a committee, we use in camera deliberations to talk about specific witnesses, sensitive matters. Ultimately, we do release the final result of our deliberations.

Do you think that committee in camera discussions should also be subject to ATIP?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Please give a quick response, Mr. Beeby.

[Dean Beeby]

I believe in protecting deliberations that deserve protection. That's all I can say. It's sort of a hypothetical question. I'm not sure what kind of in camera discussion you're talking about.

I'm not opposed to the protection of cabinet deliberations. I just think the system we have has gotten out of hand. I think the definition of “cabinet confidence” is expanding every year so that it covers, more and more, non-cabinet documents.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Beeby.

We will now begin the next round of questions.

I wish to inform the members of the committee that Mr. Jolly is with us again, remotely.

Mr. Kurek, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

It's been a fascinating conversation.

Mr. Tromp, I'd like to give you an opportunity to answer the question that my colleague, Mr. Barrett, had asked about some of the challenges associated with trust in media because the media is not able to access some of this information.

If you want to respond to that, I know you had put your hand up before.

[Stanley Tromp]

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

This is one of the reasons I created the database of every ATIP news story produced by ATIP requests since 1983. That's over 6,000 of them, which demonstrates to the public the value of the ATIP system and the danger of losing it—which we have now with newsrooms sometimes cut back in half, newspapers with bankruptcy and massive industrial decline. Some of that will be picked up by freelancers and new digital media, but far less than before.

It's a double whammy: the industry under strain, plus the ATIP system failing so much.

The question was raised about the problem of delays. Yes, I've had stories quashed because of delays. The information was no longer relevant. The major problem is that in our ATIP law, the reply can be extended for an unspecified “reasonable period of time”, with no day limit set. That could mean anything to anyone. It's a blank cheque. That allows it to be extended, potentially, forever. That's a part of the law that most nations with FOI laws would never accept.

Also, the average response time in most FOI laws in the world is two weeks. That is half the level of the initial response time of 30 days in our ATIP law. Even much poorer countries with weak administrative systems respond much more quickly. Sometimes, it's a week or two.

It's a question of political will, usually. It's not always resources.