Question Period Note: Access to Information and Transparency during COVID-19

Workplace measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and protect the health and safety of federal employees affected institutions’ ability to respond to access to information and personal information requests throughout of the pandemic.

•The Government remains committed to maintaining the openness and transparency of government during this challenging time.
•At the onset of COVID-19 workplace measures, institutions faced challenges but have worked hard to improve their ability to respond to access to information or privacy requests.
• We have, in response to the Information Commissioner’s recommendations, made more information related to COVID-19 and its response proactively available.
•As well, we committed, in Budget 2021, significant new funding to improving and reviewing the ATI program, and we will continue to work with the Information Commissioner to meet Canadian’s’ needs for open, accessible, and trustworthy information. Government

In response to public health direction on COVID-19, most employees have been working remotely and many had reduced access to documents and information systems that they would usually use to respond to requests. There are no provisions in the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act to extend deadlines or place requests on hold due to an emergency.
TBS issued guidance to institutions to make best efforts to process requests and proactively publish information, in accordance with operational realities. Notices currently posted on the Open Government Portal and the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Online Request Service inform requesters of potential delays due to COVID-19 measures. TBS continues to support institutions with suggested best practices for working digitally to respond to requests.
Since the onset of COVID-19 measures, institutions have made progress in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 measures on their ability to respond to requests. During the week of April 27, 2020, 6 of the 105 institutions that responded to TBS’ then-weekly capacity questionnaire indicated they had no capacity to respond to ATIP requests. As of July 20, 2021, all of the 144 responding institutions indicted that they had full or partial capacity to respond to requests.
Key mitigation activities have included:
•Institutions offering to provide electronic records to requesters, where paper records cannot currently be accessed.
•Institutions utilizing e-post where possible to facilitate electronic responses to requesters.
•The former President of TB, Jean-Yves Duclos, wrote to his Cabinet colleagues to encourage Ministers to proactively publish as much information as possible related to COVID-19 as well as reminding them of the importance of ensuring best practices in information management.
•TBS organized workshops to share best practices to help ATIP Offices adapt their procedures to the remote work environment.
•The ATIP Online Request Services has remained available as a simple and efficient means for Canadians to submit requests to 2120 federal institutions.
•The Government completed a procurement process to ensure modern ATIP request processing software is available to government institutions.

OCIO continues to engage with the Offices of the Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner to ensure that these oversight bodies are aware of institutions’ operational status.

The review of the Access to Information Act, which began in June 2020, also offers an opportunity to have an open exchange on making ATI systems and processes more resilient.

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