Submissions Received by the Task Force

Full Submission

From: Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA)
Sent: June 14, 2001

Moved by: Terry Cook
Seconded by: Tom Nesmith
Carried by: UNANIMOUS vote of approval

In that the Government of Canada has created an Access to Information Review Task Force (P.O. Box 1178, Station B, Ottawa, Ontario, KIP 5R2) to review the clauses and operation of the federal Access to Information Act;

In that archivists as information professionals have vital interests in Access to Information either directly at the federal level or through federal legislation often being mirrored in other jurisdictions;

In that archivists have long experience in administering access to information/freedom of information legislation across Canada, and in dealing with researchers using that legislation to access archival holdings covered by such legislation;

Be it resolved, that the Association of Canadian Archivists

• supports the Government of Canada in its review of the Access to Information Act; .
  
  
• urges the Task Force to use the expertise of archivists in its deliberations through direct
  contact with appointees of the Association's President
  
  
• urges the Task Force to maintain the historical and just balance between citizen' s rights, on the one hand, to access government information for many research purposes and to hold government accountable through reliable records as the basis of democracy, and, on the other hand, to prevent the early disclosure of sensitive personal information that constitutes an invasion of privacy;
  
  
• urges the Task Force to recognize the clear linkage between any realistic implementation of the right of access and the effective management of the information of Government in all recording media (including especially electronic records), grounded by control of authorization of all records destruction by the National Archivist of Canada;
  
  
• urges the Task Force to strengthen the authority (and resources) of the Information Commissioner and National Archivist in promoting better records management, including expanded punitive powers and penalties for non-compliance with record-keeping directives;
  
  
• urges the Task Force to expand the scope of the Act, so that the schedule of departments and agencies subject to the Act is made identical with those of the Privacy Act and the National Archives of Canada Act with which they are related;
  
  
• urges very strongly the Task Force to introduce a passage of time clause, requiring that all government records should be released by their creating department or by the National Archives twenty-five (25) years after their creation. A passage of time clause exists in Privacy Act regulations and in the more effective access-lease rules before 1983. If there are rare exceptions to this blanket release date, save only for sensitive personal information that has longer passage-of-time release dates already, these should be justified for continued closure only on a case-by-case basis made before the Information Commissioner, who would rule on their validity, subject to appeal to the courts. This places the burden rightly on government to demonstrate why records should remain closed rather than on citizens to request (at their time and expense) that they be opened;
  
  
• urges the Task Force to consider, in light of recent impasses on this release of historical censuses, inserting an explicit census release clause in a revised Act; and
  
  
• instructs its President to convey this motion to the Chair of the Access to Information Review Task Force, the Minister of Justice, the National Archivist of Canada, the Information Commissioner of Canada, and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
  

Submissions Received by the Task Force