RCMP Watch

Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service
Too often the public’s right to know is overridden by government officials who try to hide wrongdoing or save the government from embarrassment. That’s one of the conclusions drawn in Information Commissioner Robert Marleau’s annual report, tabled Tuesday in Ottawa.

The ombudsman in charge of administering Canada’s Access to Information Act said that despite the progress made since the legislation was first introduced in 1983, chronic problems impede its full implementation.

“Too often, responses to access requests are late, incomplete, or overly censored. Too often, access is denied to hide wrongdoing, or to protect officials or governments from embarrassment, rather than to serve a legitimate confidentiality requirement,” Marleau said in the report. “Year after year, in the pages of these reports, information commissioners recount what is going wrong and offer views on how to make it right.”

Marleau’s study includes a report card that grades the performance of 17 government institutions in respecting the freedom of information legislation. The Privy Council Office - essentially the hub of government operations and decision-making - was one of five departments to receive a failing grade. The assessment is based on the percentage of access requests that are answered late. The Privy Council Office, the Canadian Border Services Agency, Health Canada, the Justice Department, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police all received an “F.”

Of all government departments, it is the prime minister’s that should be leading the way and setting an example for the rest, Marleau said.

“It is particularly important, as a matter of leadership example to all other government institutions, that the prime minister’s department and the department of the minister who is responsible for the Access to Information Act (Justice Canada) succeed in getting an ‘A,’” wrote Marleau.

“The chronic inability of PCO to answer a modest workload of access to information requests (less than 600 per year) has much to do with a burdensome and unusual approval process,” he said.

The information commissioner said the Privy Council Office applies a top-heavy approach to handling access requests, which slows the process, and that senior officials have no special training or expertise with respect to their obligations under the act.

Marleau’s review found numerous instances where files contained no documentation as to whether any “pro” and “con” factors for disclosure were considered in the decisions.

Marleau said there is reason to believe Justice Canada will improve its failing grade by next year because senior management is closely monitoring progress and the department has put the necessary processes in place.

The same cannot be said for the RCMP, said Marleau.

“The RCMP is floundering badly,” Marleau wrote. “It does not have a coherent plan in place with specific deliverables and target dates … While it is true that the RCMP has a large workload of access requests with which to cope, it can, and must, do better.”

Nine government departments did “do better” last year, Marleau’s report said, improving their grades from the previous year. Three of them even moved from an “F” to “A.” Others remained the same and Health Canada and Transport Canada did worse in 2006, dropping from a “D” to an “F” and a “B” to a “D” respectively.

The departments said they had a significant increase in the number of access requests, a shortage of staff and difficulty retrieving records.

Marleau, who assumed his position in January, pledged to continue in the same tenacious tradition of the previous commissioner, John Reid, to ensure the public’s right to know is properly respected.