Standing Committee
On Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics
Robert Marleau
Information Commissioner of Canada
Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
[Check Against Delivery]

Ottawa, Ontario

[2007-11-20]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a real pleasure for me to be here this morning to outline the priorities for my Office and hopefully assist the Committee in setting its agenda of activities at the beginning of the second session of the 39^th Parliament.

I have distributed to you a document that will provide background information. I apologize for not getting it to you earlier, but my staff worked all weekend to put it together and translate it on time.

During my appearance last April on your consideration of the 2007-2008 Main Estimates, I indicated that we would not be asking for any money for that period to cover any specific changes with regard to the Federal Accountability Act (FedAA).

Now that we have more information, we are making a precise submission on our budgetary needs in order to comply with our obligations as well as the increase in our investigative workload. Our dialogue with the Treasury Board Secretariat on an amount of funding is positive.

A second area of improvement and priority is our service delivery. Although the Office has maintained a consistent record of resolving almost all complaints without recourse to the courts, our record of timeliness in conducting our investigations is not as impressive.

In the 2006–2007 fiscal year, the average turnaround time for investigations was about 12 months - as opposed to the service standards of 30 days for administrative complaints and 120 days for denial of access complaints - and we have a significant backlog. At the end of 2006-2007, 1,030 investigations were in backlog status.

We have devised a strategy and set challenging goals that are expected to be fully implemented during fiscal year 2009-2010.

Preliminary results of our complaints handling process review supports the creation of a dedicated intake function and an early resolution function. This preliminary analysis also points to the need to review our service standards.

Since April 1^st, the number of complaints has doubled. It is too early to draw conclusions on the reason for the increase, but, if the trend is sustained, we will need to re-evaluate our backlog strategy. We will provide you with an update in the spring of 2008, when our analysis is completed.

A third priority is continuing to monitor the performance of federal institutions engaging in systemic or repeated breaches of the Act. This is done through "Report Cards" where federal institutions can have a mark of "A" for ideal compliance with the statutory deadlines down to an "F" for alarming non-compliance.

However, we have realized that, over the years, the current program may not have completely reflected or communicated ongoing efforts by institutions to improve compliance, or, on the flip side, it might not have clearly identified the reasons why specific institutions were consistently performing badly. This Committee has played a crucial role in monitoring the results of the Report Cards by calling poor performers before the Committee to address their compliance record and proposing a strategy for improvement.

We are currently reviewing our approach to increase the effectiveness of the Report Cards to ensure that contextual elements that may affect the overall performance of the selected institutions are considered. We want Parliament and more particularly this Committee to have a more complete picture of institutional performance if and when you chose to review them. We plan to table the result of this more comprehensive analysis in a Special Report on fiscal year 2007-08 next fall.

The concept of the "Duty to assist" is a recent addition to the ATIA which now requires the head of an institution to make every reasonable effort to assist a requester, to respond to the requester accurately and completely, and provide access to the record in the format requested. This is called "duty to assist". I believe that Parliament added those words to the statute for a reason.

I also believe that Parliament expects concrete and visible leadership. Heads of institutions should therefore lead by example in developing a meaningful implementation of the new provision within their jurisdiction. For some, it is an inherent part of the job. For others, it will require a change in attitudes and culture.

We will closely monitor developments relating to this new responsibility.

We will continue our efforts on the reform of the Access to Information Act. It is a "constant" priority of this Office. I’m on record as saying that the Act is very robust. Any amendment to it should be approached with caution. However, after 25 years of existence, there are many aspects that either need to be fine-tuned or strengthened. Other aspects were not foreseen at that time and their inclusion would greatly improve this service to Canadians.

The FedAA, adopted in 2006, updated but did not reform the legislation.

This Committee has already clearly expressed its position to the Government on reforming the Access to Information Act. We have held informal discussions with Justice officials. We are trying to identify common ground on the issues raised in the Open Government proposal. There is no indication however that reform is a short-term priority of the Government.

Honourable members, I have provided you with a quick overview of the priorities of my office for the next few years. I have not listed them in any order of precedence. Legislative reform and report cards are the two priorities that may intersect with those of the Committee. The latter will only come up in the fall of 2008. Should you decide to pursue legislative reform, then it will become our first priority and we will do all that is required to assist the Committee in its deliberations.

You may wish to have further explanations or clarifications. Thank you for your attention. I am ready to answer your questions.