Government Operations Committee on Feb. 5th, 2026

[Caroline Maynard]

The institutions that receive the most orders are National Defence, Library and Archives and PCO. This year, we've seen that a lot of orders have been issued against Health Canada and Transport Canada, but this is a new trend. I can tell you that National Defence was our top institution, but it's going down. This year, we only have 55 complaints in our inventory against National Defence.

That's why I say the order-making power is a powerful tool, because they, I think, now resource their units properly. We don't get as many complaints. We have no cases against National Defence in court, whereas at PCO it's the opposite trend. We had issued fewer against them and now they're going up, and my inventory at PCO has the highest number of complaints right now.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Can you share with us how many cases you have referred to the Attorney General over the last, say, five years?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes. If you want, I can respond to that now. I have the numbers here.

We have referred on exactly five occasions, and none of these have resulted in an investigation as far as we know.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

Does that mean the Attorney General has refused to proceed with charges?

[Caroline Maynard]

We were not made aware after we referred cases to the Attorney General. The process doesn't involve me or a notification to me of what's happening.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

It doesn't, even though you're the complainant of the matter?

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm not the complainant. I'm referring evidence.

[Harb Gill, Conservative, Windsor West, ON]

I'll pass the rest of my time to Mr. Brassard, if he has any further questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have 40 seconds.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

The budget implementation act, Bill C-15, allows for exemptions of ministers with respect to certain laws. Presumably the access to information law can be captured in that.

Are you aware and are you concerned about anything to do with the budget implementation act with respect to that provision within it?

[Caroline Maynard]

No, I haven't been made aware.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

That's all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Osborne, go ahead.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

I want to go back for a moment to requests that are frivolous, broad or duplicative. There must be a way to reduce the small number of requests that come from a repeat...or a frequent flyer. I know you said that they're small in number, but every institution and organization would have their frequent flyers or even bots that are set up to make requests.

Can you give me your thoughts on that?

[Caroline Maynard]

Currently, the act does not have a system where we can stop somebody from making an access request or limit it, and I don't think that would be the proper way. The way it is built now, with a specific section where institutions can try to deal with the request, and if it doesn't work out, they send us a request to allow them not to respond, is the best way to protect this quasi-constitutional right of access.

It's the request that has to be vexatious, abusive of process or in bad faith—not the requester. It's the request itself, under the act. A requester can have multiple requests going on. Some of them may be overbroad, but others may be very specific. We're always talking about the request itself. There is a process in place right now, and it's the same process that exists in most jurisdictions that have to deal with access to information requests.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

I'm not suggesting this. I'm asking for your thoughts on this. Other jurisdictions charge different amounts for access to information. Respecting the right to know or the right to access information, if somebody is making one or two requests a year it's not an abuse, but if somebody is making numerous requests, maybe it is.

Would it be fair for frequent flyers, for example, or multiple requests to have a different rate? Instead of the five dollars, there's a different rate once you go over a certain number of requests in the year.

[Caroline Maynard]

I wouldn't be in favour of that because most requesters who would be frequent flyers would be journalists, for example, or members of Parliament. It's people who intend to protect or to understand the decisions that they want to discuss or publish about.

The problem with the fees is that because you don't have proper management of information, you may end up with one million pages to review, but it's not because the person is asking for that information that he should pay for that. It's probably the institution that should have properly managed the information in the first place. All these factors come into play.

Access to information should be free. It should just be better managed by the government.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

What about the issue of bots, for example?

[Caroline Maynard]

I think that right now there is a system in place. You have to ask the person to demonstrate that they are a person and that they are residing in Canada. There's already a process in place to limit those robot requests. It hasn't been an issue that my office has been asked to investigate, that I'm aware of.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

Can you tell us how many requests go to the Privy Council in a year? Is it more or less than other departments?

[Caroline Maynard]

I can come back with the exact number.

I believe that, last year, they received about 700 access requests. We have 250 complaints in our investigation inventory right now.

[Tom Osborne, Liberal, Cape Spear, NL]

You talked about streamlining processes and introducing innovative practices.

Can you talk about some of the innovative practices your office has put in place?

[Caroline Maynard]

My office—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. There's no real time left, but you could offer a shorter response, if possible. I don't wish to cut you off because we're out of time.

[Caroline Maynard]

The fact that we now digitize everything has made it much better. We used to do paper files as well. Having two screens helps. Sometimes it's the little things that really help somebody work faster.