Information & Ethics Committee on April 18th, 2023

[David Matas]

That's an issue that has been addressed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. I'm part of the Canadian delegation to that alliance, representing B'nai Brith. I'm on the access to archives project. We've done a lot of work in that area. There are some very elaborate and specific definitions. Because Canada is a member of the alliance, they normally comply with what that alliance has recommended.

The answer to your question is there. It's posted. It's on the Internet. It's detailed. The government, I would say, should just adopt it.

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

What, in your opinion, is the reason for their not having adopted it to this point?

[David Matas]

We don't have a Holocaust-related archive at Library and Archives Canada or anywhere. There are some private archives but nothing public. I haven't heard them say they are opposed to doing it. They just haven't gotten around to doing it.

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

By their not having gotten around to doing it, how has that affected your work? What are the repercussions of your not being able to fully execute on the work you've described doing?

[David Matas]

That's related to your motion.

I have been trying with my colleagues, as well—Michael Wenig, David Rosenfeld and so on—to get access to these archives. They are there at Library and Archives Canada, but they are not accessible. We can't see them. I mean, it's a related problem. Obviously, the archives should be grouped together. They should also be accessible. If they are grouped together but not accessible, it doesn't help us very much. We need both.

I must say, I welcome your motion. I agree with it entirely, even though I can't vote on it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I appreciate that, sir.

What would having those documents mean to Jewish Canadians—the ones outlined in the motion? It won't be debated or voted on today, but what would that mean to Jewish Canadians? What would those documents being publicly available do with respect to education on and awareness of the Holocaust?

[David Matas]

We're now entering an era where the survivors are almost entirely gone. There are some left, but not that many. While they were alive, the survivors were a tremendous educational force. In the absence of the survivors, what we have are the archives. The archives loom in importance with the passing of the survivors—and, of course, the perpetrators, too—for telling us what happened and educating people. It's not just telling people what we know happened. It's finding out more about what happened. The history isn't complete until we have the records, so people can digest and analyze them.

We have a lot of information about the Holocaust in Canada, because we had so many survivors. We had so many perpetrators. That's a story that remains to be told until we get access to the archives.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Next we're going to go to Ms. Hepfner. You have six minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would also like to thank our witnesses for being here and sharing with us today.

Mr. Matas, I'll come back to you. I want to thank you. I think it's very appropriate for you to be here advocating on this issue on Holocaust Remembrance Day, so I want to thank you for that.

I met with some of your colleagues from B'nai Brith in my office just recently and talked about this issue of declassifying Holocaust documents. I think I understood—and correct me if I'm wrong—that the U.S. has a more open system. I'm wondering if you can talk about what they do differently south of the border and, maybe, lessons we can learn up here.

[David Matas]

The U.S. has specific legislation about this. We don't. I think it would be useful to have an amendment to the Access to Information Act to deal specifically with that. I mentioned, of course, that the European Union data regulation has something specific about that as well. We have precedents to pull from in other jurisdictions.

There's probably the scope to do something in the present legislation. I don't feel that.... There's room for interpretation and application of the legislation, so I don't think we need to wait for an amendment to make these records accessible, but it's going to be a lot easier when there's a specific direction. That's what I would learn from that.

I wonder if Michael Wenig has something to say about this.

[Michael Wenig, Lawyer, Matas Law Society, B'nai Brith Canada]

The U.S. legislation basically created an inter-agency working group that was charged with a duty to collect and organize Holocaust records from across the federal government and have the records be delivered to the National Archives. It then mandated the National Archives to set up a public archive of all these records.

That was the gist of this federal legislation. It's quite progressive relative to what we have in Canada.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That's helpful. Thank you very much.

I would like to turn to Mr. Larsen next. You were talking about legislative changes. What we heard from the Information Commissioner at this committee is that, in fact, legislative changes could exacerbate some of the problems that we're seeing in access to information now.

Do you agree that we should begin with administrative reform and working out some of the problems in rolling out what we have before we tackle legislation?

[Mike Larsen]

Thank you.

No, I don't think it has to be one before the other. You can do both at the same time. There are a lot of really good arguments to be made about improving the accessibility of the access system and the way that the information is managed in government. I really take that quite seriously. We recommended the same.

Some of the core issues around cabinet confidences, exemptions and delays have been recommendations before committees like this for decades, so I think kicking it down the road any further is not really a good decision.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Okay.

[Ken Rubin]

Can I answer that, please?

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'm sorry. I only have a limited amount of time, Mr. Rubin—

[Ken Rubin]

I do too.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

—and I'm going to move on.

Mr. Larsen, continuing with you, we heard from the President of the Treasury Board that digital technology and transitioning paper records into digital tools we can access more easily are a big challenge for the department right now.

Do you think that these new digital tools are critical to addressing the challenges in the access to information system?

[Mike Larsen]

I think that they're very important. We have to be able to access the records and to locate the records that are pertinent to access requests.

However, ultimately, we have to make sure that the records that are released are released in a timely fashion, are comprehensive and are not full of holes, and that can't be addressed exclusively with digitization. That has to be a matter of law reform.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Okay.

You also spoke in your statement today about the fees for access to information. In B.C., I think it's gone up to $10, and I read in The Globe and Mail that since that $10 fee was introduced in British Columbia, there's been a drop in access to information requests by 80%. It's a drop due to media and opposition politicians. They're all reducing their requests for access to information.

Can you comment on what you think about that? Are you encouraged by the government reducing the fee to $5 or free, if there's a financial challenge?

[Mike Larsen]

Thank you. I jump at the opportunity to speak to this.

It's a deterrent fee. This is not really a cost recovery fee. It's a fee that's designed to make people think twice before using the FOI process. In B.C. we went from having no fee to really a mix now of $10 for some organizations and public bodies, and others that haven't implemented the fee just yet. As you say, there's been a really disastrous drop in the use of the act, especially by journalists who are looking to use it for accountability purposes.

My organization is filing more FOI requests now to monitor the effectiveness of the new regime under this situation.

Reducing the barriers to access information is fundamentally important in a democracy, and a fee is a barrier. We strongly support the removal of fees, and we certainly would oppose any increase in fees, including in the federal ATI system.

I'm heartened by the removal of processing fees as part of the federal reforms, but we really want to make sure that people are able to get accurate and timely access.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Larsen and Ms. Hepfner.

Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for six minutes.

If you wish to use part of your time to answer Mr. Rubin's question, you may do so.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rubin, thank you for being here for a second time.

I asked the minister earlier whether this was a sincere effort or whether it was just for optics.

Do you think the government is stalling to avoid reforming the act?