Observations reçues par le Groupe d'étude

Soumission complète

(Soumis en anglais seulement.)

Auteur : Association canadienne des bibliothèques
Envoyé : Le 1^er juin 2001

Association canadienne des bibliothèques

Brief to the Access to Information Review Task Force

Founded in 1946, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) is the national English language library association representing Canada's estimated 58,000 library workers. It is a registered charity, governed by an elected Executive Council, which is advised by over thirty interest groups and committees. Its five divisions represent libraries in colleges and university, municipalities, government and private companies and schools.

The mission of CLA is to promote, develop and support library and information services in Canada. The main focus of libraries is to provide access, training and support for Canadians who need information for their daily, education and lifelong learning needs.

CLA believes that the implementation of the Access to Information Act (ATIA) has provided Canadian citizens with an opportunity to become more aware of the issues related both to accessing information and their rights to information. The ATIA has created a higher expectation among Canadians that information should and will be made available to them. They have also become more aware of the possible misuse of information and the need to ensure that the correct information is available. It is clear that Canadians are now less likely to be passive with respect to their right to information.

Access is the Key

As information providers, CLA members believe that the emphasis must be put on "access." While the ATIA has resulted in more access, there have been and continue to be blocks to gaining access that have been put in place by the very process charged with making information more accessible.

As citizens, Canadians should have access to all information that has been produced by the Government of Canada. This information should be readily available and there should be no need for citizens to have to apply to get it. The current exceptions under the ATIA to gaining access to information of a personal nature, risk to business, or security risks, etc. are acceptable , but even these, apart from personal information, should be examined from time to time to ensure that they are not being used as excuses for withholding access.

Full Coverage Required

In speaking about which agencies should be covered under the Act, one of our members has said "In my opinion, if any government agency benefits from taxpayers' money, it should be held accountable and should release information." (A statement which could be applied generally to the question of access as well!) There should be very few agencies, regardless of their status, federal department, special operating agency, crown corporation, etc., that are exempted under the Act. Any of those applying to be exempted should provide overwhelming proof for this special status.

DSP Should be Enshrined in Legislation

A federal Government programme that is dedicated to providing Canadian Government information to Canadian citizens and that has been in place for almost seventy-five years is one of Canada's best-kept secrets. Most citizens are not aware that published government information has been made available since 1927 to Canadian citizens by the Canadian Government through the Depository Services Program (DSP). This programme places federal government publications in a network of libraries throughout the country. 92% of the Canadian population lives in close proximity to a depository library and all Canadians have access to the publications provided by the DSP through the national system of inter-library lending.

Not all departments and agencies subject to the Treasury Board Communications Policy comply with the requirement to participate in the programme and there are others which are not covered. For this reason, the DSP should be strengthened in order to ensure that all government publications, regardless of format, are provided through the programme. Enshrining the DSP and its work in legislation and giving it adequate funding would ensure that it continues its valuable role in access to information.

The Impact of Technology

New communications technologies provide the means for better access to government information, but they can also create the risk of invasion of personal privacy. In order to prevent this from happening, the Privacy Act needs to be part of the discussion.

New technologies, while making information more easily accessible, also endanger the risk of losing information because of their volatility. With more and more government publications being published in electronic format, the loss of information has become a very real danger. Among the problems of changing technologies and unstable archiving, those electronic documents which are continually "updated" can also create a serious issue-publications which are always "current" cannot show how they have changed over time. The result is that previous editions of publications run the risk of disappearing altogether if they are not archived before the next changes occur. Thus, enhancements and improvements to equipment and software need to be accompanied with a commitment to ensuring ongoing access by archiving information produced by the Canadian Government. The preservation of all editions of all documents and ensuring their "migration" along with the development of new equipment and software is necessary to ensure that the documents will be still accessible in the future with whatever new technologies are developed, thus preserving our heritage.

Making the ATIA Work

The purpose clause of the ATIA is still very much relevant. It is unfortunate that the Act has been used at times to make it more difficult rather than easier to obtain information. If material which should have been public has been provided through one request, it should be made available so that repetitive requests become unnecessary. If information is not excluded under the provisions of the ATIA, it should be made readily available with no limit on how much material may be requested.

There also needs to be a change in philosophy on the part of those who are charged with implementing the ATIA. Instead of seeing the ATIA as an obstacle to their work, they should see it as an integral role in fulfilling their mandate as public servants. This change needs to be fostered from a change in attitude from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Sometimes it is clear that departments have not been provided with the resources needed to fulfill their mandate. Making procedures simpler and adopting a philosophy of open access will relieve some of the burden, but there will still instances in which the staffing complement should be reviewed.

The current schedule of fees seems to be reasonable. If there is a commitment to providing information to citizens, the cost of obtaining information under the ATIA needs to remain within the financial grasp of the ordinary citizen. Similarly, the practice of processing each request as it is made should remain in place. (According to the costs listed in Annex A of the consultation document, the cost of administering the ATIA was approximately $1.00 per citizen for the year 1998/99.)

Conclusion

In conclusion, members of the Canadian Library Association would like to affirm that government information should be more readily available and that use of the Access to Information Act should be the last resort, not the first, for gaining access to government information.

For the distribution of published material (in any format), the provisions governing the Depository Services Program should be strengthened (enshrined in legislation with funding and compliance from author departments).

Observations reçues par le Groupe d'étude