Annual Report Sets Out Information Commissioner’s New Modus Operandi For Fostering More Transparency in Government (June 2009)

Ottawa

[2009-6-4]

Ottawa, June 4, 2009 — The Information Commissioner of Canada, Robert Marleau, tabled his 2008–2009 Annual Report in Parliament today, documenting his organization’s efforts over the past year to bring about greater transparency in Canada by encouraging federal institutions, through various means, to more readily comply with access to information legislation.

The annual report describes the substantial improvements that the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) has made to its investigative process in an effort to enhance efficiency and timeliness. An important goal is to eliminate the OIC’s pre-April 2008 inventory of complaints by April 2010. The report also presents the Commissioner’s new approaches for addressing system-wide issues which adversely affect access to information in Canada and for maximizing his influence on institutions’ compliance with the law.

“Still, much more is needed to bring about a true culture of openness and transparency,” Mr. Marleau wrote. “To move forward, strong, concerted leadership is required, now more than ever, from all quarters and at all levels.” The Commissioner called on Parliament to continue to press the government to reform the outdated Access to Information Act and challenged Treasury Board and all executive leadership to commit to the cultural change required to fulfil the spirit of the law.

OIC’s Achievements in 2008–2009

• The OIC registered 2,018 new complaints between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009. These complaints added to an existing inventory of 2,293 cases, which partially resulted from an increase of over 80% in the number of new complaints received in 2007–2008.
• Despite this substantial workload and limited investigative resources, the OIC closed 1,770 complaints in 2008–2009 compared to 1,381 in 2007–2008. The average turnaround time was 13 months—the calculation was largely influenced by the high number of files in the inventory that were already several years old.
• Of all new complaints registered in 2008–2009, 52% were administrative complaints—a relatively high percentage which demonstrates the persistence of system-wide or recurrent issues.
• There was a higher proportion of discontinued complaints in 2008–2009 than in previous years. In keeping with its inventory reduction strategy, the OIC was able to quickly ascertain that a high number of older time-related complaints had already been resolved and were therefore discontinued. In addition, more flexible mediation strategies led to the resolution and withdrawal of 290 administrative complaints at once.
• Almost half (1,167) of the pre-April 2008 cases were closed in 2008–2009.

Today’s report also contains a digest of noteworthy investigations conducted by the OIC during the last fiscal year as well as summaries of important legal cases which have involved the Information Commissioner or have raised other issues of significance for the interpretation of the Access to Information Act or freedom of information in general.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Thérèse Boisclair
613-943-4368

For a copy of the OIC’s Annual Report 2008-2009: Maximizing Compliance for Greater Transparency, or for general enquiries, please visit our website at www.oic-ci.gc.ca

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