Evidence of meeting #2 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was commissioner.
A video is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Yes, if I issue an order, it has to be complied with.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Are there any institutions that aren't following your recommendations or that aren't following your directives properly?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
The act allows them to go to court if they don't agree with the order. They have to do so within a certain period of time. However, if they don't, they are supposed to comply with the order. As explained earlier, there have been a few cases where they neither complied with the order nor went to court. I had to take action myself by going to court to force them to comply with the order. That has happened a number of times.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Has it happened a number of times in recent years?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
It has happened a number of times at National Defence and a few times at other institutions.
September 15th, 2025 / 12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Okay.
What happens when you decide to seek recourse against them? I imagine that they will have to act at some point. Are they basically just trying to slow down the system by giving you a response after taking their time?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
As I was saying earlier, the cases that went to court didn't end up before a judge, because the institution responded to the request before we obtained a court order. Cases were resolved that way.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Do you think that's part of a strategy? Instead of following a clear, precise, accessible and transparent system, time is wasted, and a mechanism is used to slow down the process and try to determine which documents to give, in order to benefit from it at the end of the day.
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
The Access to Information Act provides that you have to submit your information within 30 days. If you haven't done it in 30 days, you can file a complaint with the Office of the Information Commissioner. Once the office has made a decision, it is presumed that the institution will respect it or go to court itself. The mandamus process is expensive and time-consuming, so it can certainly be seen as a tactic to buy time.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Okay.
Whether we like it or not, access to information is the crux of the matter. We live in an era when information is highly accessible and consumed. Everyone wants to know what's going on. We're living in an era when people have less and less trust in our policies or our governments.
Do you think your office should be given more funding to ensure that it is able to do its work in the right way and that Canadians trust in our systems?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Certainly, the access units and my office should have enough funding to respond to requests and enforce the act. That said, the government should be providing information even before an access request is needed in the first place.
We strongly promote the production of voluntary information, by default. Information should be available on websites. People should have access to that information to fully understand decisions and policies, without necessarily agreeing, but at least understanding what's going on.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
People want debates and transparency.
Do you feel that's what's happening right now? Is the funding going in that direction, or is it the other way around?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
It's hard to say.
I'm often told that it's very expensive to publish information in the federal government because it has to be done in both official languages. In addition, some people are afraid to provide information. There's a culture of secrecy.
Nevertheless, if senior officials in the various departments promoted transparency and understood, as you say, the importance of people trusting their departments and the government, it should be increasingly available and accessible.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
That will be the future crux of the matter. Access to information is obviously very important.
Do you get the impression that in departments, in our institutions or in politics in general, more documents are being kept than before? This problem was raised earlier: There are still a tremendous number of documents, emails and so on.
Is that what we're seeing, or is it the opposite, that documents are lost, forgotten or erased too quickly?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Unfortunately, at the Office of the Information Commissioner, we see things repeating.
If you had spoken with the commissioner who preceded me, she would have raised the same issues and concerns. This is becoming increasingly important because there are more and more requests. This year, 200,000 access requests were filed.
Conservative
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Is that my last question? Is that it, Mr. Chair?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
You're over time, Mr. Hardy.
Ms. Lapointe, I believe you're going to share your time with Mr. Saini.
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Madam Commissioner, I'm a new member, so excuse me if I don't....
How competitive is our legislation compared to that of other developed countries, like England, Australia, New Zealand and the United States? Is our compliance less than or on par with the other countries, and what do we need to do to bring those levels up?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
There is one institution that reviews the legislation, which will rank it compared to that of other countries. I think Canada is now 58 out of 109, so we're in the middle. Our act is not the best in terms of its accessibility and transparency and the level to which the institution that it's applicable to....
One of the places I like to compare us to is Scotland, which has very progressive legislation. The commissioner there has the authority to monitor how institutions are doing, which I don't. There's also legislation that allows the office of the information commissioner to do outreach and education, which I also do, even though it's not in my act. I think it's important for people to understand what their rights are and how the legislation is applicable.
The implementation of legislation is really hard to monitor because it's within the administration of the government and each institution is doing it differently, so we have institutions that are doing really well and others that are not doing as well with the same act. So far, there are not a lot of tools out there to say which country is doing better than others.
Interestingly, in Brazil, they don't have an independent commissioner, but every access request is on their website. The time it takes to respond to every access request is available.
There are some tools out there, and every time I see something like these, I tell TBS, because I want it to compare and see what best practices exist. Clearly, Canada can do better. We used to be doing really well, but at this point, we're not meeting up with the current principles in legislation.
Conservative
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you for being here today and for your answer to the question my colleague asked you about other countries. You talked about 200 requests a year. What can you tell us about the evolution of access to information, having been in your position since 2018?