Heritage Minister Blocks Release of Records Sought by Information Commissioner

Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang)

Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge has submitted an application to a federal court in an attempt to prevent the disclosure of records requested by the information commissioner.

“Records that have not yet been produced are voluminous,” lawyers for St-Onge’s department said in an application to a federal judge. “They total approximately 10,500 pages. They must be reviewed.”

The records being sought under the Access To Information (ATI) Act involve firearms documents from Library and Archives Canada dating back to 1970. The files were requested two years ago, but managers ignored the request, according to court documents first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

When a subsequent complaint resulted in Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard issuing a June 21 order demanding the information be released within a day, lawyers from the heritage department requested a judge cancel the order.

“Library and Archives Canada requests more time,” wrote lawyers, without specifying a deadline. According to Ms. Maynard, the federal government failed to meet its 30-day legislated timelines on more than 30 percent of the 400,000 or so ATI requests made in the last year, Global News reported.

In 2021 testimony at the House of Commons government operations committee, Ms. Maynard said the federal ATI system was “on the brink of being unable to be fixed.” She added that the COVID-19 pandemic was just “one more excuse” for its dysfunction and that the “right of access, a quasi-constitutional right, cannot be suspended because of the pandemic.”

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“Government transparency is the foundation of a strong democracy and has never been more important than during this crisis,” she added.

Following the election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2015, the government promised more disclosure of records sought by the public. “We have promised Canadians a government that will bring real change,” he said in a ministerial mandate letter on Nov. 13, 2015.

In June, the House of Commons Access to Information Committee requested that Ottawa conduct a system overhaul so Canadians can access the information they need to hold the government to account, saying the system was “broken.”

“Most witnesses confirmed that an effective access to information system is essential in a modern democracy. Many of the witnesses also believe that the current system is inadequate. Two witnesses indicated that the status quo is unacceptable,” said the committee in its report, titled “The State of Canada’s Access to Information System,” submitted to the House of Commons on June 20.