Information Commissioner’s Office Has Seen ‘Record Influx’ of Complaints Over Past Year, Committee Hears

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 of Canada, responsible for assisting individuals who feel federal offices have not respected their rights granted under the Access to Information Act, has seen a “record influx” in the number of complaints filed since last year, a House of Commons committee has heard.

Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard told the Commons Standing Committee on Ethics on May 12 that her office closed a total of 8,089 complaints in the last fiscal year, saying the volume has now become so high that the office no longer has the capacity to process all of them.

“Since the beginning of my mandate in 2018, the annual number of complaints closed by my office has increased by 310 percent,” Maynard said, adding that her office “also saw a record influx of 7,407 new complaints.”

She said the influx represents a 7 percent increase in complaints, compared to the previous year, and said her office has “just managed to keep pace with the growing volume.”

“Our inventory now stands at approximately 3,400 complaints,” she added. “Even a reduction of a couple hundred complaints annually will not enable me to eliminate this inventory before the end of my mandate.”

Maynard told the committee that many of the complaints are “very complex” in nature and involve “tens of thousands of pages with many exemptions claimed.”

“At the current rate, it would take several more years to close all of these complaints,” she said.

Under the Access to Information Act (ATIA), Canadian citizens can file Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests to obtain records under the control of government institutions.

Federal institutions subject to the ATIA have 30 calendar days to reply to an ATIP request and give written notice informing the applicant whether or not their access to the requested record will be provided.

Access to Information

Institutions can implement time extensions for releasing a response under specific circumstances, and can also withhold or redact certain information in the records if they deem its release to the public would violate an individual’s privacy or be “injurious to Canada’s security or economy, or federal-provincial relations, and international affairs.”

Cabinet documents and information are also not not readily available for immediate release through ATIP requests.

Requesters who aren’t satisfied with time extensions taken by institutions or with the information an institution releases in response to an ATIP request can submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who then carries out a confidential investigation into the complaint’s nature.

MPs on the ethics committee asked Maynard if her office has the operating capacity to manage all of the incoming complaints. She replied that her office will need a significant funding increase to do so.

“We want to be in a position where we can meet the demand,” she said. “I have 3,500 complaints in my inventory that are active and I just don’t have the money to properly investigate them.”

Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said in April that the federal government will be introducing a plan in the coming months, aimed at improving the ATIA and how it is managed.

While appearing before the ethics committee on April 18, Fortier said that Canada’s Open Government portal contains approximately 37,000 records and 2 million proactive disclosures.

“We have a lot of work to do to address the underlying systemic issues,” she said.

Matthew Horwood contributed to this report.