Information & Ethics Committee on March 7th, 2023

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We just spent quite a lot of time studying McKinsey, so understanding that, can you describe why an increasing number of government programs and services are being transferred to private sector agencies? Is it a fair statement that Canadians' access to information will continue to decrease without an intervention that would include them in part 1 of the act?

[Caroline Maynard]

We need specific institutions to be in the act.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay.

That was fantastic. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green. My favourite movie is Uncle Buck, especially the part where Macaulay Culkin is asking questions, and Buck says, “Why do you do that?” and the kids says, “I'm a kid. It's my job.”

Thank you for that.

Mr. Barrett, you have five minutes.

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

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, for being here today.

At the Standing Committee on Government Operations, there was an exchange between the chair and the comptroller general that was widely reported on, and it revealed that the comptroller general was caught directing colleagues to be careful what they wrote down so that it would not be captured in emails and then subject to ATIPs.

What do you think about that? First, ma'am, are you familiar with the scenario that I'm referring to?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes.

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

Okay. What's your reaction to that?

[Caroline Maynard]

I issued a statement on what I heard. I cannot comment specifically, because, I will admit that I'm doing an investigation on that issue, but generally, what I can tell you is, as I said earlier, access does not exist if there are no documents. We need leaders to encourage the creation of documents so that Canadians are entitled to get that information when they request it.

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

Right. It would be fair that your guidance would be the opposite of something like that, of someone saying not to write things down. If there were an oral conversation taking place, your guidance would be that minutes should be taken on it and it should be retained. Is that the type of document creation you're referring to?

[Caroline Maynard]

My advice to the institutions is that they need to be clearer on taking minutes, making decisions and proper documentation. Commissioner Rouleau mentioned that as well in his report. That is, when decisions that are important are being taken fast, people sometimes forget to go back and write down what was discussed, and we need that. We need public servants who know that it's part of their job.

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

You've expressed in your words great disappointment that the Liberal government didn't put forward concrete solutions to the issues Canadians face with access to information.

Why do you think they didn't put those solutions forward?

[Caroline Maynard]

I don't know. I think you could ask the government.

I think what they've done is a really good summary of all the issues that we know exist in the system. What we don't know now is how they intend to tackle those issues.

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

In your opinion, what would it signal to Canadians if the government had exhausted its willingness to improve and build out the legislative framework around access to information? What is the message that this would send to Canadians, if that were the case?

[Caroline Maynard]

It means that our act is going to be considered one of the worst legislation on access to information when you look at other jurisdictions in terms of access. As I said earlier, our act is 40 years old. It was created when we were dealing with paper, and now we're in a digital world. We need to have an Access to Information Act that's modernized up to 2023.

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

In the absence of an act that's modernized up to 2023, in a situation where we see the delays of returns from requests for access to information, does that harm Canadians' confidence in their institutions? Does that have a harmful effect, or is it a neutral effect? Would you say that it's harmful?

[Caroline Maynard]

I think it is. We can see Canadians saying that they are lacking in trust, and it is our job to make sure that this trust increases in our institutions and in our government.

One solution is to provide them with information in a timely manner. Respecting the act that we have currently would be a great advantage, but we are having difficulty doing that.

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

Thank you very much, Ms. Maynard. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

We're going to go back to Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, again, to the commissioner.

You've been talking about the lack of resources in your office. I would like to point out that the public accounts show that in 2015 your office got just under $10.5 million, and that in 2022 it was just over $16 million, about a 54% increase.

Can you talk about what those extra funds do for you, how much more you could use to be really effective and the difference in the amounts of money over time?

[Caroline Maynard]

I cannot talk about 2015, unfortunately. I was there in 2018. When I arrived we were asking for additional funding because of the number of complaints that were received by my office. Every year we get an increase, a 25% minimum. In the five years that I've been commissioner the complaints have increased by 180%.

Unfortunately we can't foresee the future, so every time we ask for additional funding we think we have enough, and then the next year we have more complaints.

We definitely use these funds to hire investigators. I have 75% of my funding going to investigations to support them and to complete them. Right now, like I said earlier, I'm funded for close to 4,000 cases, approximately. We were able to do 7,000. We have increased our efficiency. Working from home for us has been a great advantage, because our people are way more efficient when they don't have all the distraction and noise.

That aside, I think if we continue to receive more complaints we cannot attack the inventory. My inventory is always staying at around 3,500 or 4,000 cases. I'm closing 7,000 cases, but I'm receiving 7,000. I would like to have at least temporary funding to get additional investigators so that we can get rid of those files that are stuck in the inventory.

I also want to say that, even if I get more money for more investigators, the units, the institutions, as I said earlier, are not able to respond to my investigators. They don't have the resources either. They have to decide whether they are going to respond to me in my complaints investigation process or respond to the requests that are waiting on their desks as well.

More money to me is not sufficient. We need to invest in the entire system.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

It seems to me one of the factors that would help alleviate some of that pressure is more proactive disclosure by the government.

One thing this government did through the open government portal was include a suggest-a-dataset function, so users can request information that they would like to see released. Is that a good addition? What other things would you do to improve the portal for users?

[Caroline Maynard]

Access requests should be the last resort to obtain the information. The information should be accessible through proactive disclosure. It should be accessible through the portal. I've given the example before that, with CRA, you have your own account. Imagine if you had to ask, through an access request, for information about your taxes. You don't have to, because you have a portal where you can go and see your information.

IRCC is a great example. If they provided their information through a portal, we would see 200,000 fewer requests a year in this government. I would see 3,000 fewer complaints in my office probably as well.

There is a lot to invest in providing the information that Canadians are asking for, not what the government wants to give. There's a difference between providing information that nobody wants to read about.... We need to find out what Canadians want. Institutions know that. They have the frequent requesters and requests that come back. Briefing notes are a good example. Now that we're providing titles, they are asking for the content.

I told the deputy ministers, when they write a briefing note, to make sure they know what they want to provide—what's public and what's not public—so that it's easier for their ATIP unit to process afterwards.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I only have 10 seconds left.

Do you have any recommendations on how to improve statistical reporting?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes. The Scotland government has in their act that the commissioner has access to the statistics every three months, so he can proactively go to the units that are struggling. Right now, I think the annual reports that are presented by the institutions are useless, because we see the results a year later.

It's not helpful for my office. It's not helpful for anybody. I think we need to reduce the reporting requirement, really, to what is useful to us, so we can actually help them. How many requests...? How often are you late? How many unit analysts do you have? What are your issues?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Hepfner and Ms. Maynard.

We're going to Mr. Dalton. This is the final round of questioning.

Mr. Dalton, you have five minutes.