Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chair, as an order of business, this meeting has to be a respectful meeting where we ask questions in a respectful manner and give people a reasonable chance to answer them, rather than intervening every time. This is not respectful, and I object to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I've been conducting these meetings for almost four years. Members have the right to ask whatever questions they want in relation to the matter. Sometimes they take their time back, and I think Mr. Shea was given ample opportunity to answer the questions.

Mr. Sari, you have the floor for four minutes.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank everyone here for all the information that has been shared.

Mr. Shea, before I ask my questions, I'd like to lay out a premise of how your work is perceived in relation to access to information. There are two elements to consider: It's a matter of educating not only the people who develop, process and collect information within our government, but also the people who request this public information, and so on.

With all of my colleagues' questions, I note that there's sometimes an attempt to see what you have done within your government systems.

I would like you to tell us a bit about what you have done, because there have been backlogs. What have you done in terms of the elements, that is, to avoid getting requests that are sometimes absurd and to avoid having useless data that can make it more difficult to respond to access to information requests?

[Matthew Shea]

My colleagues may add to this.

I think, at a very high level.... I heard the word “frivolous”. There is something in the act that allows you to complain if something is frivolous. Similar to going to court, it's not something we really want to do. We'd really like to hold that for a true situation that we need it for.

In general, our access to information team—which honestly is a fantastic group of people who are deeply committed to this work—works with the requester to try their best, to try to figure out what they're actually trying to get.

The reality is.... It's not unlike using AI in some cases. If you don't ask the right question, you end up getting a bunch of information that's not necessarily useful to you. If somebody asks a question that is incredibly broad, the first thing we do is try to talk to them about it. If they can tell us a little bit more about what they're looking to get, we'll try to help them, even if it is not necessarily in our own interest. We will often help somebody to curtail their request to get exactly what they're looking for.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You spoke about prioritization earlier. Every time I hear that term, I think about the fact that we all want to prioritize quite a few things in life.

Could you talk about the criteria you use to determine priorities? What do you base your decision on when you say that one thing is a bigger priority than another?

[Matthew Shea]

I'm going to turn to Mr. Neilson to talk about priorities when it comes to ATIP itself and the files. I assume you're talking about prioritizing files.

[David Neilson]

The prioritizing of files is always done with the legislated deadline in mind, the first 30 days or if we've taken an extension on those 30 days. Building on that, if we receive a complaint, we try to work with the Office of the Information Commissioner to resolve that complaint, often before it comes to a finding.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

How can we distinguish transitory records from documents with greater organizational value or greater importance?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have 40 seconds.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I'll give you all of the 40 seconds for that.

[David Neilson]

In ATIP, we don't distinguish between transitory documents and records of business value. We treat all the documents that are relevant to the request. If somebody has their grocery list for some reason in their holdings, and they give it to us because it's responsive to a request, we would treat that. It has no bearing on whether or not the information is transitory or has business value, from our point of view.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Sari.

I want to thank all of you for being here this afternoon and making yourselves available to the committee.

We're going to suspend for a couple of minutes as we switch over to the next panel.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Welcome back, everyone.

This is our second panel today on the state of the access to information system.

We have, from Library and Archives of Canada, Leslie Weir, librarian and archivist of Canada, and Jennifer Schofield, assistant deputy minister, collections sector. From the Treasury Board Secretariat, I want to welcome Dominic Rochon, chief information officer of Canada, and Charles Taillefer, executive director, access to information policy and performance.

Ms. Weir, you have up to five minutes to address the committee.

Please go ahead.

[Leslie Weir, Librarian and Archivist of Canada, Library and Archives of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am Leslie Weir, librarian and archivist of Canada. Thank you for the invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. My apologies for being unable to be with you on Monday.

I look forward to discussing the context of the state of access to information in Canada, with emphasis on the mandate and work of Library and Archives Canada.

As you probably know, part of Library and Archives of Canada's mandate is to serve as a source of enduring knowledge that is accessible to all and to act as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions.

For years, enhancing the user experience has been central to our efforts to make collections in our care more discoverable and more accessible. LAC has a distinct role in providing access to historical government records for over 300 federal organizations and departments, of which more than 170 are still active. This means that we are the primary channel for providing access to billions of pages of archival records.

I would venture to say that LAC has a very broad and complex mission, particularly given that the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act were both enacted before the advent of the digital age. Nevertheless, we have made substantial efforts to work on delivering results to Canada in that regard.

LAC has received temporary funding to help reduce the backlog of access to information and privacy requests accumulated in the past and to meet our legal obligations. This funding has been invaluable for advancing that work. For example, in 2024-25, we reduced our backlog by 40%. As for new requests, 85% are being responded to within the legislated time frames.

These improvements are the result of a radical revamp of our approach to access to information and privacy. One of the causes of our backlog was the need to consult departments for processing many requests for access to information. Thanks to new archival research processes, these consultations have been decreased by 95.6% since January 2023.

We have also revised many processes to make information available without ATI review. One example is investment in block review, which takes a risk-based approach to releasing tranches of archival records. This is a more resource-effective method for providing access to archival records, compared to reviewing in the course of a formal ATI request. Through temporary funding, the block review team recently opened more than 19 million—yes, 19 million—pages of archival documents that can now be accessed without going through ATIP.

In 2024, we launched a database that allows users to find and download completed requests for archival records. We are also increasing access to historical military records. By 2030, 64% of Second World War military personnel records will not require an ATIP review before being released.

Even before records are sent to us for archiving, LAC plays an important role in the information management of the Government of Canada. Under the Library and Archives of Canada Act, no government record may be disposed of without my written consent as the librarian and archivist of Canada. Written consent is provided through what are known as disposition authorizations. These identify the government records of archival value that must be transferred to LAC upon the expiry of retention periods. The accountability for setting retention periods rests with each institution. LAC provides the tools and guidance to assist in doing so, as well as the guidance to support the proper and documented disposition of records.

Moving forward, we will continue to carry out our mandate with diligence, making the most of the flexibility and the resources at our disposal. We will keep striving to make as much information as possible accessible to Canadians.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. I'll be happy to respond to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Weir.

Mr. Rochon, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dominic Rochon, Chief Information Officer of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to appear with my colleagues from Library and Archives Canada and to be joined by Charles Taillefer, from my office, who is executive director, ATI policy and performance. I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the importance of access to information in government.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak about the importance of access to information in government.

Access to information is central to government transparency and accountability. It allows Canadians to understand how decisions are made, how programs operate, and how public resources are managed. To support this, departments and agencies across the public service are responsible for ensuring that information is well managed and accessible.

As the government modernizes digital services and adopts new technologies, access to information must evolve accordingly.

For these reasons, I share the committee’s view that there is always room for improvement in how the government delivers ATI.

It’s for this reason that, while we have made important progress over the years, the Access to Information Act legislates a review every five years. This review assesses whether the legislation is effective and identifies where improvements may be required as expectations and technologies evolve. The review process provides important insights into how the system is working and where it can be strengthened.

Since the last review was undertaken, the government has taken action to improve the access to information regime in various ways. For instance, we published the Government of Canada trust and transparency strategy and the access to information modernization action plan. We issued implementation notices encouraging institutions to advance reconciliation by providing culturally appropriate services and waiving the five-dollar fee for indigenous requesters. We published the plain language guide to exemptions and exclusions under the Access to Information Act. We improved the ATIP online platform, and we established the access to information and privacy communities development office to lead recruitment and training.

Building on this progress, the government is now undertaking another review of the legislation and will launch public engagement very soon. This will provide another opportunity to modernize the Access to Information Act and get feedback from key stakeholders, including the Information Commissioner of Canada, indigenous partners and parliamentary committees such as this one.

We've already received valuable feedback from stakeholders and indigenous partners over several years about how to improve the system. Of course, we have the important report and recommendations of this committee. We've grouped all that input into six areas of focus. First, there's strengthening transparency and accountability: looking at whether the act still supports its core purpose, including the effectiveness of proactive publication. Second, there is facilitating access: looking at how barriers can be reduced for requesters while still protecting sensitive information. Third is historical records: exploring options for a more systematic approach to declassification and disclosure. Fourth is information management: strengthening the rules and practices that govern how government manages information. Fifth is indigenous access and protection: ensuring that the act reflects the unique needs of indigenous peoples. Sixth is oversight and compliance: assessing whether the current framework for monitoring and external oversight is working as intended.

As we move forward, we're committed to a transparent engagement process that makes sure people across Canada can share their views. At the same time, the Treasury Board Secretariat is working to design a more focused and streamlined approach that responds to many stakeholders' calls for a faster review.

Lastly, I would like to offer a point of clarification regarding the retention and disposition of messages and emails.

Good information management—which includes deleting transitory records—helps the government effectively respond to access to information requests.

In the federal system, each department is responsible for managing the information it creates and uses, including how long that information is retained. Deputy heads, supported by their departmental CIOs, determine which records have ongoing business value and set retention periods that reflect their operational and legal obligations. This means departments make their own decisions about what information must be kept, what can be treated as transitory, and when records can be disposed of in a responsible and consistent way.

We remain committed to working with Parliament, stakeholders, and Canadians to continue improving the access to information system.

With that, I look forward to hearing the committee's comments and answering your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Rochon.

We're going to start with Mr. Barrett.

I'm going to keep this panel really tight and on time. We went a little over in a couple of circumstances in the last hour, but it's going to be kept really tight this time.

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

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

Canadians keep hearing that no records exist. They can wait weeks, in a best-case scenario, or years, for answers and the information that they're looking for.

Now, the move to platforms and enterprise solutions that include things like Microsoft Teams, which is instant messaging, changes how people communicate and the types of records that exist. There have been changes to how long they're kept.

Mr. Rochon, who stops records from disappearing? What happens when departments don't follow the rules?

[Dominic Rochon]

Thank you for the question.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, and as the chief librarian also mentioned, each department and agency is responsible for the management of information in the respective departments and agencies.

In your specific question about who stops it, there are decisions being made with regard to transitory information. I know you're tight on time, so I will try to keep this very brief. I would say that probably 85% of records created now are transitory. That is clogging up the system. There is guidance that we and Library and Archives provide in order to better manage that information, ultimately. The information is going to be deleted on a consistent basis.

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

What happens if something is labelled as transitory so as to exclude it from examination later? Who monitors that? Is it the honour system?

[Dominic Rochon]

Unfortunately, the act does not have a duty to document. As a result, there's an expectation that every department and agency is saving documents that are of business value.

In terms of holding departments and agencies to account, we have the Information Commissioner, and we have the Auditor General. We have audit and evaluation that look into whether or not those documents are being preserved.

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

There were some high-profile cases that we looked at in committee a little over a year ago now. We had claims that an IT manager accidentally disappeared all the emails that he had ever read or sent. He had just enough technical know-how to make them disappear, but not to know how he did it when he came before committee. We know that this was in a committee investigation about evidence of fraud in procurement. It was incredibly serious. Civil actions have been taken by the government. Criminal action has been initiated. It was only because we kept tugging on strings to get a little more information, not because the information was available by default or by right to parliamentarians or to Canadians.

You mentioned the Auditor General. With 85% of the records, as you say, being transitory and there not being a duty to document, we also have a greater ability—and I think opportunity—to provide more transparency to Canadians.

I notice that you observed the Privy Council Office's testimony in the previous hour. They talk about plans to use artificial intelligence to speed up the access to information responses.

Should we not keep more information, so that we can be more transparent with Canadians as government deals with larger and larger sums of money and stretches into more places in their everyday lives?

[Dominic Rochon]

That's a very complicated question. Let me attempt to be succinct in answering it.

First and foremost, keeping more has various implications. I would agree with you that if we have the technological solutions to allow that, it might be attractive, but there will always be a cost associated with it. Saving more information requires it to be saved somewhere, and there's a cost associated with that.

Beyond that, the efficiency and effectiveness of the regime that we have in place depends on our ability to sift through that information. We've tried to introduce new platforms, such as ATIPXpress and AMANDA, and make the use of that the norm. There are information management systems as well. There's ATIP online, where we've introduced technology for a portal for people to be able to access that. Then you would find artificial intelligence tools that would be introduced on top of that.

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

I'm sure that keeping every Teams message forever would become cumbersome—the government is a really big organization—but it feels like two weeks is insufficient. It feels to me wholly insufficient when that's what appears to be the directive on how long Teams messages are to be retained if they're deemed to be transitory.

Is that correct? Does that seem like enough time? Would it really be onerous for the government to keep them a little longer than 15 days?