Archived - Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act 2018–2019

Table of Contents

Introduction
Purpose of the Access to Information Act
Mandate of the Department of Finance Canada
Administration of the Access to Information Act

Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives

Interpretation of the Statistical Report (Annex A)

Monitoring Compliance
Annex A - Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act

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Introduction

This Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act (the Act) within the Department of Finance Canada (the ‘Department’) is prepared and tabled in Parliament in accordance with section 72 of the Act and covers the period from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019.

Purpose of the Access to Information Act

The Actcame into force on July 1, 1983. Its purpose is to provide a right of access to information in records under the control of a government institution in accordance with the principles that such information should be available to the public, that necessary exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government. The Act is intended to complement existing procedures for access to government information; it is not intended to limit access to information that is normally available to the general public. Under the Act, Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or any person or corporation present in Canada have the right to request access to information contained in government records.

The Department recognizes that the right of access to information in records under its control and other federal government institutions is an essential element of our system of democracy. It is committed to openness and transparency, respecting both the spirit and the requirements of the Act, its regulations and related policy instruments. The Department further acknowledges the importance of facilitating access to records by requiring that its employees make every reasonable effort to assist applicants.

Mandate of the Department of Finance Canada

The Department helps the Government of Canada develop and implement strong and sustainable economic, fiscal, tax, social, security, international and financial sector policies and programs. It plays an important central agency role, working with other departments to ensure that the government's agenda is carried out and that ministers are supported with high-quality analysis and advice.

The Department’s responsibilities include:

• Preparing the federal Budget and the Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections;
• Preparing the Annual Financial Report of the Government of Canada and, in cooperation with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Receiver General for Canada, the Public Accounts of Canada;
• Developing tax and tariff policy and legislation;
• Managing federal borrowing on financial markets;
• Designing and administering major transfers of federal funds to the provinces and territories;
• Developing financial sector policy and legislation;
• Representing Canada in various international financial institutions and groups.

The Minister of Finance is accountable for ensuring that his responsibilities are fulfilled both within his portfolio and with respect to the authorities assigned through legislation. In particular, the Minister has direct responsibility for a number of acts as well as fiscal and tax policy relating to other acts that are under the responsibility of other ministers.

Administration of the Access to Information Act

Access to Information and Privacy Division

The Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Division is part of the Communications Policy Division, Consultations and Communications Branch. The ATIP Division is responsible for administering the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act for the Department. As a centralized operation, the ATIP Division coordinates the timely processing of requests under the legislation, conducts interdepartmental consultations, handles complaints lodged with the Information Commissioner, and responds to informal inquiries. Division staff also provides guidance to departmental officials on matters involving the Act. Within the ATIP Division, 13employees were dedicated on a full-time basis to the administration of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act along with related functions. The ATIP Division is comprised of a director, supported by two managers, eight ATIP analysts and two administrative assistants.

The ATIP Division continued to work diligently on staffing actions throughout the fiscal year in order to address departures and to prepare for the possible coming into force of Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. Two senior ATIP advisors were staffed in early 2019 and will assist the ATIP Division in addressing backlog of Access to Information Act requests and complaints and ensuring readiness for the new requirements of Bill C-58.

Principles on Assistance to Applicants

With the passing of the Federal Accountability Act, section 4(2.1) was added to the Act:

The Department is committed to both the spirit and intent of these principles, and adheres to the Act and to the Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act with respect to their application when processing requests under the Act.

Training and Awareness

This year, the ATIP Division participated in two departmental orientation sessions. These are provided to all new employees who join the Department as a means to introduce them to the activities of each Branch. It provided information about the ATIP Division, the administration of the Act, and information management practices to 65 new employees.

Four other training sessions were given to 132 departmental employees within various branches of the Department Topics included effective processing of Access to Information requests, understanding legislative requirements in addition to the provisions of exemptions and exclusions under both Acts. Other training sessions were to provide employees details of the Bill C-58 proposed amendments to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and the Department’s obligations. Ad hoc training on a variety of subjects was also provided as needed to individuals throughout the Department including to new ATIP branch contacts.  

Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives

Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act

On May 5, 2016 the President of the Treasury Board issued – under his authority as Minister responsible for the Access to Information Act – an Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act (the Interim Directive).

The Interim Directive enshrines the principle of “open by default”. It also directs that:

• All fees, apart from the $5 application fee, will be waived;
• When feasible, requesters will receive information in the format of their choice, including open and reusable formats.

More specifically:

• The ATIP Division no longer provides fee estimates in response to requests;
• Branch officials continue to work with the ATIP Division to identify requests that are not clear or may be wide in scope. This assists requesters in reformulating their requests where it would result in requestors receiving more accurate, complete and timely access;
• Records are provided in the format requested by the requestor, as long as privacy, confidentiality and security would not be compromised;
• Branch officials have been reminded, while reviewing documents for release, to exercise discretion in a fair, reasonable and impartial manner taking into consideration of the core principle of the Access to Information Act. Government information should be available to the public, subject only to limited and specific exceptions to protect privacy, confidentiality and security.

Proactive Posting on the Web of Lists of Briefing Notes

To meet Canada’s commitments under Open Government, one of the four deliverables presented to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat included posting the list of briefing note titles produced for the Deputy Minister, the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary on a monthly basis starting October 3, 2016.

The lists of briefing notes can be found on the Departmental web site under the “Transparency” tab. This allows requestors to obtain the lists in a timelier manner and to make their requests for specific briefing notes.

Bill C-58 Preparedness

Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, was referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on June 6, 2018 and was going through a clause-by-clause review as of March 31, 2018.

Some of the proposed measures coming into effect upon Royal Assent which will have a significant impact on the Department include:

• Providing the Information Commissioner with order-making power:
  • this would apply to the release of government records, time extensions, fees, access in official language requested, and format for accessibility purposes;
• Requiring government departments to seek written consent of the Information Commissioner for time extensions for more than 30 days for the processing of Access to Information Act requests;
• Information Commissioner’s approval required to decline to act on requests that are vexatious or made in bad faith;
• Facilitating the sharing of ATIP processing services between institutions within the same Ministerial portfolio;
• Legislate proactive publication and expand coverage of the Access to Information Act to new institutions not previously covered (e.g. Ministers’ offices).

The Department is working to ensure its resources and processes are in place to be ready and minimize  impacts of these changes. These changes will have an effect on all of the Department not only the ATIP Division. The Department is ensuring it has a department-wide strategy on how best to implement these changes and be ready upon implementation.

One of these strategies was to establish a departmental ATIP Bill C-58 Transition Committee comprised of representatives from each branch of the Department.

The Committee is responsible for making recommendations on how best to comply with Bill C-58’s requirements and sharing of best practices regarding information management and business processes.

Regular updates were provided throughout the fiscal year to the Departmental Coordinating Committee (DCC).  The DCC is comprised of general directors or equivalent representation from each branch.

Other Activities

To ensure policy compliance and adherence to procedures for appropriate handling and preparation of responses to ATIP requests, the ATIP Division continued to update tools used by staff both in the ATIP Division and across the Department and held face-to-face meetings with new staff and contacts. In addition, the ATIP Division reviewed its current structure in order to incorporate the functions of two new ATIP Senior Advisors. As a result, a new roles and responsibilities chart was developed to describe the functions of each level. The ATIP Division also collaborated in developing a team charter which has become a roadmap that defines the division’s purpose and how all members are working together to achieve the expected outcomes.

Both tools and meetings were instrumental in ensuring that the Department’s employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities related to access to information and privacy requests.

Delegation of Authority

The delegation of authority approved on December 1, 2015, provides the authority to approve or deny the release of departmental information requested under the Act. This is shared by the Deputy Minister, the Associate Deputy Ministers, the Assistant Deputy Ministers, General Directors, Executive Directors, Senior Director of Communications Policy, the Access to Information and Privacy Director, ATIP Team Leaders and Senior ATIP Analysts to sign off on more administrative matters. Generally, the ATIP Director approves all exemptions.

Information Holdings

All government institutions subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act publish an inventory of their information holdings as well as relevant details about personal information under their control. The information can assist individuals in making an access to information or personal information request, or in exercising their privacy rights.

A description of the Department’s programs, activities, and information holdings, including its classes of records and personal information banks can be found in Info Source: Sources of Federal Government and Employee Information.

Some programs and activities, such as human resources and financial management, are common to most government institutions. These are known as internal services and they involve the following types of information:

• Standard classes of records: These are descriptions of all records created and used to support internal services.
• Standard personal information banks: These are descriptions of personal information contained in records, and collected and used to support internal services.

Interpretation of the Statistical Report (Annex A)

Part 1 – Requests under the Access to Information Act

Number of Formal Requests

A new process effective April 1, 2018 was implemented in order to expedite the processing of requests for briefing notes. The ATIP Division now processes one request per briefing note to ensure requestors are provided the information in a timelier manner and allows departmental staff to process these requests more efficiently. This new process meant that the number of formal requests increased to 1,724, an increase from 913 formal requests received the previous reporting year. Despite this new process, the department would have seen an increase of 122 formal requests for other types of records held by the Department.

The total number of requests considered was 2,003 as 279 requests remained outstanding from 2017-2018. By the end of 2018-2019, 1,598 requests were completed and 405 were carried forward to 2019-2020.

Table 1 illustrates a five-year trend.

Other Requests

In 2017-2018, the Department received 487 informal requests; this reporting year, the Department received 473 informal requests, a slight decrease of 2.9%. The vast majority of informal requests came from members of the media, followed by the business community and organizations.

In 2017-2018, the Department received 310 consultations from other federal government institutions and organizations on matters of interest to the Department. This reporting year, the Department received 332, a 7.1% increase. The total number of consultations considered was 341 as 17 remained outstanding from 2017-2018. By the end of 2018-2019, 254 consultations were completed and 87 were carried forward to 2019-2020.

Table 2 illustrates a five-year trend of the total number of received formal Access to Information Act requests, Privacy Act requests, informal requests, and consultations received from other government institutions and organizations.

Sources of Requests

The greatest change seen in 2018-2019 in sources of requests were in the number of requests received from requestors in the Media and Business categories and those choosing to decline to identify their category of requestor:

Part 2 – Requests Closed During the Reporting Period

Disposition of Requests

The following table indicates the disposition of the 1,598 requests completed during this reporting period:

The following is a comparison of the disposition of requests completed for the last three reporting periods:

The changes in most of the categories were minimal with the exception of the increase in requests which were all disclosed, disclosed in part and all excluded.  

Completion Time

Of the 1,598 requests completed this fiscal, 1,348 (84.3%) were closed on time, a slight increase to 2017-2018’s 83.9%.

The ATIP Division continued to make a number of changes to improve its efficiency, reporting and direction with:

1. Electronic approvals and consultations;
2. Weekly targeted branch statistics showing lists of ATIP files on-time and late;
3. Proactive release of lists of briefing notes and the processing of individual requests for briefing notes.

Requests requiring more than six months to complete usually involved large numbers of documents that required extensive internal consultations, consultations with third parties and, often, consultations with other government institutions. Given the nature of the work done by the Department, consultations must be conducted with other federal government institutions on many of its requests and completion time is consequently impacted by the amount of time required of the other institutions to respond to those consultations.

Of the 1,598 requests closed during the reporting period, 736 (46%) were completed within 30 days, 646 (40%) were completed within two to four months, 131 (8%) were completed within four to six months, and 85 (5%) took more than six months to complete.

Exemptions Invoked

In 2018-2019, the Department invoked a total of 4,187 exemptions pursuant to specific sections of the Act (more than one exemption can be applied to a specific request).

These exemptions were as follows:

Exclusions Cited

The Access to Information Act does not apply to information that is already publicly available, such as government publications and material in libraries and museums. It also excludes material such as Cabinet confidences. Consistent with the Act, exclusions were invoked 1,247 times: 26 for information that could be found in the public domain, available for purchase or found in a library and 1,221 times under section 69 for confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. Because the Department is responsible for preparing the federal Budget and develops legislation and associated policies, it has a large number of documents classified as Cabinet confidences.

Format of Information Released

Records were provided to applicants in 1,304 cases, 418 of those (32%) in paper format and 886 (68%) electronically. No applicants asked to view the records as opposed to receiving a copy. 

Complexity

Many of the requests processed by the Department in 2018-2019 involved complex issues which required the need to consult with several other government institutions and/or third parties. The number of pages in any given file is also a factor in the length of time it takes to complete a file. This year saw a number of files which contained more than 1000 pages, with the largest comprising 4,044 pages.

Deemed Refusals

Two hundred and fifty requests were closed past the statutory deadline for various reasons including a significant increase in workload, shortage of staff and consultations, both external and internal. In 191 instances, extensions of the statutory time limit had been claimed but the files were nonetheless late, due mainly to the volume of pages processed and the consultations both external and internal. In the remaining 59 instances, no extension of the statutory deadline was taken.

Table 3 provides the completion time for the 250 requests closed past the statutory deadline in 2018-2019.

Translations

No requests for translations were received.

Part 3 – Extensions

Subsection 9(1) of the ATI Act sets out circumstances under which the initial 30-day time limit for response may be extended. Extensions may be taken for the following reasons:

• The request is for a large number of records or requires a search through a large number of records, and meeting the original time limit would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the institution;
• Consultation is necessary with other government institutions, other levels of governments; or
• Notice is to be given to a third party (pursuant to s. 27(1)) of the pending release of commercial information of that third party.

During 2018-2019, the Department took 207 extensions under s. 9(1)(a) due to the volume of records and interference with government operations, versus 60 the previous fiscal year. Third party notifications required 89 extensions under s. 9(1)(c), down slightly from 95. This is in part due to the increase of requests for processing individual briefing notes.

A total of 237 extensions for consultations on confidences of the Queen’s Privy Council and 278 extensions for other types of consultations (615 extensions in total) were taken under s. 9(1)(b). Extensions for consultations were up from the 438 extensions taken in 2017-2018.

Part 4 – Fees and Service Fees Act

As previously noted, effective May 5, 2016 all fees, apart from the $5.00 application were waived.

The Service Fees Act requires a responsible authority to report annually to Parliament on the fees collected by the institution.

With respect to fees collected under the Access to Information Act, the information below is reported in accordance with the requirements of section 20 of the Service Fees Act:

• Enabling authority: Access to Information Act
• Fee amount: $5, the only fee charged for an Access to Information request
• Total revenue: $4,535
• Fees waived:
  
  In accordance with the Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act, issued on May 5, 2016, the Department of Finance Canada waives all fees prescribed by the Act and Regulations, other than the $5 application fee set out in paragraph 7(1)(a) of the Regulations. The Department of Finance Canada waived $3,445 in application fees. In order to expedite the processing of Access to Information requests for briefing notes, the ATIP Division processes one ATI request per briefing note to ensure requestors are provided the information in a timelier manner and allows departmental staff to process these requests more efficiently. Subsequently, it waives the application fees associated with these requests.

• Cost of operating the program:  $922,144

Part 5 – Consultations Received from Other Institutions and Organizations

The Department received a total of 332 consultations from other government institutions and organizations this reporting year, carried over 17 from the previous fiscal year, and closed 261. 

Of the 261 consultations from other government institutions and organizations which were closed this year, the Department responded to 166 (64%) in 30 days or less; 74 (28%) were responded to in 31 to 60 days, 19 (7%) required 61 to 120 days and two (1.%) required 121 to 180 days to complete. 

Part 6 – Completion Time of Consultations on Cabinet Confidences

The departmental Legal Services Unit responded to 407 consultations to confirm whether documents were Cabinet confidences. All but one consultation was responded to within 120 days. This represents an 87% increase from 230 consultations processed the previous reporting period. This is in part due to the increase of requests for processing individual briefing notes.   

No consultations on Cabinet confidences were forwarded to the Privy Council Office.

Part 7 – Complaints/Investigations/Audits

There were 40 complaints lodged against the Department received during the reporting period:

• Eighteen complaints concerned the exemption of information;
• One complaint concerned the exclusion of information under section 69 of the Act;
• Eighteen complaints concerned extensions taken or delay in responding;
• Three complaints were on refusal – no records existed. 

The Office of the Information Commissioner rendered 31 findings this year:

• Five complaints were concluded as “not well-founded”;
• Twenty complaints were concluded as “well-founded, resolved without recommendation”;
• Six complaints were “discontinued” by the complainants.

None of the Information Commissioner’s investigations raised any specific issues or concerns with respect to the Department’s handling of these requests and no further action was required of the Department.

No audits were initiated or concluded this fiscal year.

Part 8 – Appeals to the Federal Court of Canada

No appeals to the Federal Court were made in this reporting period.

Part 9 – Resources Related to the Access to Information Act

Administration of the Act cost the Department $922,144.00 this reporting year. Costs incurred in the reporting period include the salaries of ATIP staff and the administrative expenses associated with administration of the Act. Costs do not include salaries of other departmental personnel involved in processing requests.

Monitoring Compliance

In addition to producing weekly and monthly statistics on branch performance across the Department, the ATIP Division continues to send targeted branch statistics showing lists of outstanding branch actions related to ATI Act requests and consultations from other government departments. These statistics are shared on a weekly basis with senior management, branch ATIP contacts, the Deputy Minister’s Office and the Minister’s Office.

The ATIP Division also updated senior management throughout the fiscal year with a focus on departmental performance, current ATIP activities and Bill C-58 overall readiness.

Annex A
Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act

Part 1 – Requests Under the Access to Information Act

Note: All requests previously recorded as "treated informally" will now be accounted for in this section only.

Part 2 – Requests Closed During the Reporting Period

2.5 Complexity

2.6 Deemed Refusals

Part 3 – Extensions

Part 4 – Fees

Part 5 – Consultations Received from Other Institutions and Organizations

Part 6 – Completion Time of Consultations on Cabinet Confidences

Part 7 – Complaints and Investigations

Part 8: Court Action

Part 9 – Resources related to the Access to Information Act