To: Pierre Poilievre
CC: Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, Mona Fortier
Dear Pierre Poilievre,
Along with the dozens and dozens of things you will need to fix once you become Prime Minister, I have one more item to add to your list. Please fix the Access to Information Act. It is a disaster. I know this, because I use it a lot.
Broken item number 1: You can wait months and months and months for a reply to your access to information. As an example I have two outstanding requests with the department of Finance: One has been outstanding since
June 2023 (that's nine months). I was recently told to
"expect that we will be able to reply within the next 2 to 4 months" more. Another had been outstanding since
May 2023 (10 months) and I finally only received it this week. Whatever happened to that
30 day promise of response?
I could give you more examples, but you get the picture.
Broken item number 2: When they don't want to give you any information at all, they will actually say they do not confirm or deny the existence of records relevant to your request. I am not kidding:
"In accordance with 10(2) of the Act (The head of a government institution may but is not required to indicate under subsection (1) whether a record exists.), the Canada Revenue Agency does not confirm or deny the existence of records relevant to your request. If such records did exist, they would qualify for exemption under subsection 24(1) of the Act, which permits the head of a government institution to refuse to disclose information. For details on the provisions cited, go to laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/a-1. (24 (1) The head of a government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Part that contains information the disclosure of which is restricted by or pursuant to any provision set out in Schedule II"
Broken item number 3: Pages come back in PDF format. But the bureaucrats have decided to stymie us even more; sneaky so-and so's. What they do is, take the original text and save it as a JPEG then put it back into PDF format and send it to you. This means that you cannot search the text. In the past, you would receive the PDF in a searchable format. This is a purely vindictive measure.
Broken item number 4: Sure, you can complain to the Office of the Information Commissioner. But this doesn't help because it takes them forever to respond; even longer than the original ATIP you're complaining about. I have one complaint at the OIC that I've been waiting 21 months for. As far as I know it hasn't even been assigned to an investigator yet. Departments know this, so can just take their sweet time in responding.
Justin Trudeau wants to control every aspect of a citizen's life. The only tool we have, to in any way, make this government accountable, is access to information. But just like everything else in this country, under this government, under this prime minister, it is broken.
Please, please, please Pierre Poilievre, fix it.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Patricia Maloney