Information & Ethics Committee on April 18th, 2023

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'm sorry. I'm deaf, and I'm having a hard time hearing what you guys are saying. It's not necessarily the simultaneous interpretation.

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

It looked like there was a technology issue, and I wanted to give the minister the opportunity to have that remedied before the next question.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you. I think that clarifies it.

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Kurek.

Ms. Hepfner, you have six minutes. Please go ahead.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to also thank the minister and her team for being here to answer our questions today.

I've spoken in this committee before about my previous experience with access to information as a journalist. That was 25 years ago, and the system wasn't perfect. It took a long time and it took a lot of money. Often you didn't get any relevant information back, so it's not like it's been a steady improvement. It's not like another government has done better in terms of ATIP. In fact, this is the first government in 30 years to improve the system in any way.

I'm wondering if you, or perhaps your staff, could talk about how you've managed to address some of the systemic barriers that are in this system and improve some of the administrative tasks with regard to access to information. Does that make sense?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Yes. Thank you for your question.

Let's remind Canadians who are watching today that Bill C-58 was adopted by our government four years ago, and we are in a process of reviewing the act. Many of those decisions at the time gave more power to the Information Commissioner, and we were also able to eliminate all fees beyond a five-dollar application fee.

I would like to now turn to the fact that, since then, we've been putting a lot of effort into working on more administrative tools that we need to bring forward to reduce the burden and the load that we have seen increase over the years. For example, we now have the Open Government portal, which is really helpful in getting those requests done more quickly. As I said to a question earlier, we have also tried to give staff more tools by training them and by giving them more opportunities to manage.

Maybe I'll turn to Catherine to talk about the digital aspect, if we have time to do so.

[Catherine Luelo, Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you.

This is my first appearance in front of this committee. Thank you for having me this afternoon. I'm still a relative newbie to government. I've been less than two years as the chief information officer of Canada. I'm joining from a 30-year career in the private sector, so this is a space that's incredibly interesting for me.

We are dealing with an analog problem in a digital world. To build on what the minister said, we're dealing with a lot of paper-type records to which we're trying to provide access to Canadians, and we're doing so by trying to migrate into a digital world.

The minister has highlighted the fact that we've set up this portal. We are intending to fully onboard all departments within government so that Canadians have a common front door into the process—that's an aspiration we have for digital right across government—and to provide processing software, as she noted, that's going to be helpful in automating.

Really, at the core of the talent crunch we're in right across some of these more expertise-related areas is trying to move as much as we possibly can to an automated form, including some of the service requests we're seeing as part of the access to information requests such as immigration status. Trying to really stand those up as services is a big part of how we want to tackle that.

The report sets out conclusions, but it has not stopped us from advancing things while we're looking at and building out an action plan.

Thank you.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, you spoke, in your opening statement, about the proactive disclosures that your department has been able to do. Would you also talk to us about declassification of information?

We've heard a lot from witnesses about the importance of declassifying some information. What work has your department done in that field?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

As you have probably also heard from several witnesses, and as we've been hearing for a while, declassification is really an important part of the work to improve the ATIP system. As you saw in the review, “A systematized approach to declassification supports government transparency and accountability, [and] enhances access to Canada's history”.

We know that we put in a declassification pilot with Public Safety to examine how that could work, and we're still looking at how the pilot might guide us in how we could continue with declassification. I know that the commissioner, while she was at committee, commented on the work we've been doing and said it was a step in the right direction. When I met with her, we had a conversation about it.

It's really important that we continue to put effort into how we're going to treat declassification. I actually would like to invite the committee, during your study, to maybe guide us as we look into the next steps of declassification.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I only have about 30 seconds, if you could just comment on this. Bill C-58 was a start, and really the government is working on improving a system that has been increasingly backlogged for more than 30 years.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

It has been changed during the 30 years that you just mentioned. We have made some changes, and we're looking into.... The review has helped us to make some conclusions and to find out from stakeholders, Canadians and especially the indigenous peoples how we need to move. Hopefully, very soon we'll be able to share an action plan with what next steps we will undertake for the administrative purposes and also looking at possible legislation changes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Hepfner.

Go ahead, Mr. Villemure. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, Ms. Luelo and Mr. Burt, thank you for being here today.

Tell me something. Are you going to undertake an overhaul of the Access to Information Act?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

When we announced Bill C-58, we said that we would carry out a review of the act in five years. Part of that work is already under way, to see how we can make legislative changes. The most important thing to note at this point is the necessity of putting tools in place. The digital system plays a vital role in meeting the demand. As Ms. Luelo mentioned, in the past, records tended to be paper-based, but today, many records are available through Teams meetings, for instance, or are stored in databases. That means the data are not limited to paper records, so we are in the process of introducing administrative tools to enhance the system.

I hope that partly answers your question.

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

Yes, partly, but will you be introducing reform legislation before the end of the session?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I will be providing an update sometime between now and next year. Right now, we are looking at how to continue the work of enhancing the system, taking into account the review we've just done, the work the committee is doing and the priorities that will be identified in our upcoming plan.

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

You've mentioned the plan twice now. How soon do you mean by “upcoming”?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I don't have an exact date, but I can tell you that it will be by the end of the year. Improving the access to information regime is a top priority of mine.

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

Very well.

This is a question I asked a number of the witnesses who appeared before the committee, including the Information Commissioner. Does the government have a culture of secrecy or a culture of transparency? You could also talk about openness versus obscurity. Most people, the commissioner included, said the culture was more secretive.

The commissioner said that it was changing, but witnesses told us that it was still a culture of secrecy and that documents were redacted pre-emptively. I can understand an employee not wanting to get in trouble for disclosing too much, as opposed to not enough. That said, are you going to state explicitly in the preamble to the bill to reform the Access to Information Act that the ATI regime is based on a culture of openness and transparency?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That's always the first thing I say. Thank you for that question. We have a culture of openness and transparency, but we also have a culture of responsibility. It is indeed very important to keep personal information confidential, so we have to find a balance. We need to make sure that documents are redacted in accordance with the principles in our directive, and that's what we encourage people to do.

Perhaps my colleagues have examples they can share to explain the importance of doing this in a responsible way.

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

An American study came out a year ago in Foreign Affairs magazine, and it put a cost on the over-redaction of records. The cost is one thing, but overall, the study found that government workers tended to redact too much, pre-emptively.

I heard what you said about balance, but how do you strike that balance?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'd like to ask the members of my team to give you examples of how we provide guidance and support to public servants. That includes training to ensure that they are doing things properly and following the Treasury Board directive.

[Stephen Burt, Chief Data Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Performance Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I would simply point out that a culture of openness is directly tied to the need to protect what needs to be protected—personal information. Not everything can be disclosed. We always work with the intention of disclosing as much information as possible and making data available, but we have to protect personal information. As for secret information, like cabinet confidence documents, there needs to be some flexibility to have the discussions required for the running of the government.

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

Philosophically speaking, a secret is defined as something that needs to be kept confidential because it is private, sensitive, dangerous and so on. The current culture is described as open and transparent. It says so in the report, but that's not what we're hearing from witnesses.

That makes me wonder how much “openness and transparency” is merely a slogan.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

They are very important values, as far as I'm concerned. They are guiding principles. The same is true of responsibility. I would say that it comes down to openness, transparency and responsibility.

Clearly, as my colleague mentioned, we support that with a directive, one that sets out the framework for how public servants are supposed to do this work. We will continue to make sure they follow the directive.

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

I agree with you. Openness, transparency and responsibility can be a dangerous combination, so I'm curious as to how you manage it.

The committee wants to recommend solutions, to help restore people's trust in the system, because it is based on trust. How do you manage that triad of values?