Delays in federal access to information requests: the commissioner admits that her organization lacks teeth

Canada’s Information Commissioner is calling for more authority and resources to do her job and conduct investigations, admitting that her organization lacks teeth.

• Also read: Federal access to information requests: up to seven years to get answers

The delays are only the tip of the iceberg of access to information problems at the federal level. Commissioner Caroline Maynard indicates that institutions “are so bad at managing their information” that it ends up scattered everywhere, whether through communication systems, electronic files and emails.

“This is information that should have been better managed,” she emphasizes in an interview with Journal.

She reports that according to the Treasury Board Secretariat, in the last year, only 59% of access requests were responded to on time or within the extension deadlines. So 40% did not respect the law.

“And there are a variety of requests in their inventories that are not counted,” she recalls.

She cites the example of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which has 6,000 requests for access to information late and which are not recorded on time.

Two years of waiting for a complaint

M^me Maynard believes that it will take much more than a modernization of the Access to Information Act, but also an overhaul of the entire system that allows it to be applied.

A change to the Act in 2019 gave a little more authority to the commissioner. It can now issue orders to institutions. But they are not obliged to comply with it. She would like to have more authority and resources to act.

Lawyer specializing in access to information Michel Drapeau calculates that processing a complaint to the commission will take up to two years and adds that very few people will embark on the process which produces “often banal” results. .

“Nothing in the Act allows the commissioner to force an institution to respect them and no mechanism exists to monitor them,” he emphasizes. Well, what is the commission for?

The commissioner confirms that filing a complaint can quickly turn to the disadvantage of the person filing it.

“It allows the institution to be even further behind. This causes additional delays. And we also see a certain trend: even when I make an order, the institution has the right to challenge it. They know that by doing this, it gives them additional time.”