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
In terms of the evolution of access to information, requests are increasing by about 20% every year. Every year, there are more requests, and every year, my office receives between 3% and 5% of complaints.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Can you tell us where the requests are coming from? Is it from individuals, businesses, elected officials?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Based on the Treasury Board report—they're really the ones with the data—the majority of requests come from businesses and commercial entities, but they also often come from immigration officers, who are considered businesses.
As a result, many requests are made by the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. That covers a lot of people in Canada.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I understand that a lot of access to information requests are related to immigration. That's interesting.
You were talking about the difficulty of processing requests. The act has been around since 1983. Has it been revised or updated?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
The only significant update that took place was back in 2019. As for the act itself, the exclusions weren't reviewed, but I got the power to issue orders at that time. Before 2019, commissioners were only allowed to make recommendations.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Earlier, you and some of my colleagues talked about information in various places, including emails. Everyone used to work with paper documents. How do you deal with all of that information? We've talked about it a bit, but let's imagine that someone is looking for fairly broad information. Is there a way to make a request? Indeed, if the information is very broad, it will lead to an enormous number of documents to be reviewed.
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Yes, a very vague access to information request certainly isn't ideal. Institutions often try to deal with the person requesting the information and explain to them that, if they submit their request as is, they will receive two million pages. The institutions will try working with the requester to reduce the scope of the request. That's sometimes impossible, though, because they won't want to change it. However, the act currently has a provision that enables institutions to ask for my permission to not respond to a request that's made in bad faith or that would be unreasonable, given that the volume of information in the response would be too high.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you.
Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
That's kind of you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Maynard, you started listing amendments earlier. The people listening to us may not read your report, so I'd find it interesting if you could give us the whole picture.
Could you complete your list?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
There are a lot of things that could be improved in the Access to Information Act. Section 21 is often invoked; it deals with the advice and recommendations of public servants. It is often used in a somewhat abusive way, according to our office and our investigations. Other acts have provisions that provide for a list to exclude certain information, such as facts and statistics. We'd like to draw a comparison with those other acts to help the people who enforce the Access to Information Act to better respect the intent behind that section.
Of course, when we talk about judicial or de novo review, there are important things to know. The Office of the Information Commissioner can currently act as a party in a hearing before the Federal Court. I think it's important to maintain that, because complainants often aren't represented and don't see the file. We see the file when we conduct an investigation. It's important for the Office of the Information Commissioner to retain that power and to be able to represent access-related interests, not to mention the complainant's interests, and to defend the application of the Access to Information Act, even if a file goes before the Federal Court. It's particular.
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
In terms of the increase in complaints, you said there were 200,000. Do you have an explanation for that?
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
There were 200,000 access requests.
Information Commissioner, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
As was mentioned earlier, people want to know what's going on and ask questions. I think that's one of the main reasons.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
Commissioner, on behalf of all committee members, thank you for your testimony today.
I'd also like to thank the clerk, the analysts and the technicians.
That concludes our meeting for today.
We'll see you Wednesday at 4:30.
The meeting is adjourned.