Notes for Remarks to the Library of Parliament Seminar on Building a Parliament you want: Effective Mps in an Effective Parliament

OTTAWA, ONTARIO

[2004-11-15]

Information – good quality, primary source information, not pre-digested and spun information – will be essential to your work as MPs. There are many sources of information open to you, such as by putting questions on the order paper. This avenue for obtaining information from government does not produce primary source records, it often does not produce information quickly and there is no independent avenue for complaint for determining whether or not order paper answers are accurate and complete.

The information gathering tool which does have such features is the Access to Information Act. It gives all Canadians (indeed, all people present in Canada), including MPs, the positive legal right to ask for and obtain access to government-held records within specific time frames, subject only to 13 limited and specific exemptions and with recourse to an independent officer of Parliament, the Information Commissioner, if you are not satisfied with the response. The application fee is $5 and that includes five hours of search and preparation time. If additional search and preparation time is required, you will be charged at the rate of $10 per hour. All in all, a very effective and inexpensive system if you keep a few tips in mind. Here are my tips to assist you in making the Access to Information Act an indispensable tool for doing your job as an MP.

Use INFO SOURCE (the inventory of all records held by the institutions subject to the Act) to identify what institutions are likely to hold records relating to subjects of interest to you.

Introduce yourself to the ATIP coordinator for those institutions and explain your areas of interest and that you and your staff, from time to time will be making access requests. Offer to engage in discussions about the meaning and scope of any requests you do submit.

Make your requests as narrow and specific as possible by restricting subjects and time periods. This will reduce your fees and speed up response times. Departments are entitled to extend the 30-day response deadline if your request is so broad that it entails a large volume of records and meeting the 30 days would impose an unreasonable burden on the institution.

Don’t play hide-and-seek with the ATIP coordinators by camouflaging what you’re really looking for in a complicated and vaguely-worded request. The clock will stop if the coordinator has to come back to you for clarification and you will miss the benefit of the ATIP coordinator’s wealth of knowledge about where to look for the precise information you want. Put another way, I am urging you to build a relationship of trust with ATIP coordinators.

Use the Access to Information Act as a long-term investment in your substantive area of interest. Put a number of requests into the pipeline and be patient. Results won’t be forthcoming as quickly as you would like at first, but, once the results do start coming there will be a steady return.

When you aren’t happy with the results – too long, too expensive, too many exemptions, inadequate search - don’t be too quick to exercise your right of complaint to me. Try, first, to express your concerns to the coordinator and get his or her explanations. You may be satisfied, and you will have avoided imposing upon my office and the taxpayer the burden of an unnecessary investigation.

Once you do make a complaint to my office, the investigator will not be your advocate. He or she will be the law’s advocate and make every effort to determine whether or not the Access to Information Act has been respected. The investigator will hear your concerns, but he or she is legally bound to conduct investigations in secret. Complainants don’t get to know much about the investigation until it is over and the results are reported to them. Please don’t take out your frustration, at being in the dark, on the investigator. He or she is proceeding in the manner dictated by Parliament in the Act.

Last, but certainly not least, I ask you to champion this right of access as you review the legislation which comes before the House and its Committees. Many Bills will try to sneak in new reasons for secrecy – those efforts need to be resisted. The 13 contained in the Act are more than sufficient. Some Bills may try to truncate the investigative powers of the Information Commissioner, as was the case with the antiterrorism legislation – your careful, ongoing scrutiny of any such effort is vital.

And, soon, there will be a government bill to modernize the Access to Information Act. You must be vigilant, on your own behalf and on behalf of all Canadians, to ensure the Bill is not a "wolf in sheep’s clothing", purporting to strengthen the right of access but creating more opportunities for delaying or denying access.

I hope each of you will find a way to be a champion of the public’s "right to know"; I and my officials stand ready to assist you in your important work.