Evidence of meeting #27 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 institutions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
No.
Conservative
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Maynard, I'll pick up on this regarding the PCO.
I think you mentioned, in your opening remarks, the historic age range of time that the PCO often deals with, in terms of the requests they're receiving. Could you clarify for me what that age range you mentioned was? Was it 35 to 60?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Yes, it's something like that.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Just so I'm clear, was your comment, then, that one of the major issues the PCO has to grapple with is the fact that these requests often touch records that are 35 to 60 years old?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
They are documents.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Are those documents digitized, or are they still in predigital, paper form? How are they stored?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
They are mainly paper.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
They're mainly paper, so they'd be housed somewhere in storage.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
No. They're in storage at the PCO.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Is there a moment in time when records of a historical nature like that, dating back 60 years...? I'm just trying to do the math here. It's taking us back to the 1960s. Do those records ever move over to Library and Archives to be archived?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
This goes back to the authority of each institution to determine when they will send the documents that Library and Archives and the institutions agree are of cardinal value to Library and Archives.
This would be a very good question to ask Mrs. Weir or somebody from the PCO: “Why are these documents still within the PCO?”
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Is that practice common in other departments as well? Are they holding on to records, or could be? I guess the idea is that they could be holding on to records of that age.
February 9th, 2026 / 4:05 p.m.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
We don't see that very often. The PCO is definitely the institution that has the oldest records being asked for by requesters.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Okay.
What are some of the recommendations you might have? I think that's a very different problem, in fact—looking at records that are predigital and from mid-last century versus looking at records we're generating in government today. What are some of the ways we should be looking at this or ways we could address that challenge in government?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
As with any other institutions, you have to determine the periods when your documents will be destroyed. If not, when are they going to be transferred to Library and Archives? That discussion has to be happening with Library and Archives.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Presumably, that would be at a time that would make sense, like maybe at a change of government, for example, or when you are doing an assessment of your records and of what needs to be archived.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Every year, you should be doing some cleaning up of your—
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It should be every year, but certainly at the end. I'm with you there.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Now we're dealing with older.... Yes.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
My colleague asked about artificial intelligence and technological solutions. I'm just wondering if there are any existing technical tools that would help people who are working in the system designate an email as a record for retention. You've mentioned the challenge we see with duplication in email threads where there can be many people in an email. The question is, who retains it for the purposes of record-keeping? Are there tools that make that process easier?
We all manage inboxes today. They are often a source of daily waterfall of electronic information. What exists to make this process easier for public servants and political actors who are working in the system?
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
I am not aware of a tool that does that right now for somebody's own email inbox. That would be a great tool, if it existed.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It's very much on the individual to figure out the best possible personal system of record-keeping and archiving.
Information Commissioner of Canada, Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada
Yes. It is within the institution that there have to be rules about who keeps what, for how long and where.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
When my colleague was asking you a little bit about artificial intelligence, you mentioned a few of the departments that are using AI. Are any of them using this creatively now in terms of how to keep these records or how to search and accumulate these records?
