Information Commissioner Increases Legal Spending Due to Feds’ Blocking of Release of Records

Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard prepares to appear at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, in Ottawa, on March 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

The Office of the Information Commissioner has had to increase its spending on lawyers due to the number of legal challenges that federal government departments and agencies have filed in order to block the disclosure of public records, the House of Commons ethics committee was told.

While speaking before the committee on Oct. 16, Commissioner Caroline Maynard was asked by Conservative MP Michael Barrett whether the federal government had “gone to court” to prevent the office from disclosing records.