(OTTAWA) The federal information commissioner, Caroline Maynard, regrets that the “excuse” of COVID-19 is still used by departments that are slow to release documents.
Posted at 1:07 p.m.
“It is unacceptable,” she ruled Monday while testifying before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
“Institutions have had more than two years to adapt to the reality of a pandemic and the challenges it poses in our lives and work environments,” she added.
Under the Access to Information Act, federal departments and agencies are required to respond within 30 days to citizens attempting to obtain documents. However, Ottawa regularly grants itself additional time to actually follow up on these requests.
The M teamme Ménard is facing a dazzling increase in complaints for non-compliance with the legislative obligations of departments and she believes that the long deadlines granted are the source of this influx of requests.
In front of parliamentarians, she affirmed that between 1er April 2021 and March 31, 2022, his office received nearly 7,000 complaints, which represents a 70% increase over the previous year.
To investigate each complaint as quickly as possible, she said the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada had to put projects on hold and redirect as many resources as possible to deal with these files.
The Commissioner is asking for additional resources since her team cannot “keep up the pace” and the list of complaints to be processed is constantly growing.
When judged to be founded, these complaints make it possible to force the hand of departments to disclose information.
She invited the ministries to improve their performance now. “There is no need to wait for legislative changes to act,” she said.