How come Canada’s information commissioner Marleau operates mostly behind closed doors?

Canada's Information Commissioner Robert Marleau is developing some bad habits. He's meeting mostly behind closed doors and developing his public office's procedures without much public consultation or approval. His idea of getting Canada's 25-year-old Access to Information Act off its deathbed was to hold in Ottawa only a closed access-to-information workshop at the Rideau Club, complete with a cocktail get-together. I declined to attend the workshop as it was not an open session. The small list of by-invitation-only attendants was largely drawn from the federal government, the Access to Information Commissioner's Office, and Public Policy Forum organizers. What's of greater concern is that the information commissioner and his officials have been holding secret meetings with the Department of Justice and Treasury Board to "work together" to come to an agreement on how they can "improve" certain features of the access process that they believe do not entail public, Parliamentary, or legislative review. The model they're working from is the government's own internal Access Task Force 2002 report whose largely discredited $4-million plan of action was thought to be dead. Those 2002 task force vested recommendations called for more internal administrative monies being spent, higher fees for access users, and more exemptions to public access. They wanted troublesome access users weeded out, but no penalties applied for officials replying late to access requests. A few of the task force's pro-secrecy recommendations did find their way into Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2006 Accountability Act like cutting off for many years public access to draft audit reports. Former information commissioner John Reid at the time called the government access task force's report recommendations "timid," "one-sided," and added to a "zone of secrecy." It's a package Reid said then that was being "cheered along by those few senior officials who refused to appear to voluntarily cooperate with the commissioner's investigations by refusing to appear or answer questions." But now Commissioner Marleau is helping to give new life to these insider recommendations and that does not bode well for reducing growing federal government secrecy. Marleau, himself a long-time insider in the House of Commons administration, was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as information commissioner more than a year ago and his mandate goes until the year 2014. His appointment was considered a safe one for Ottawa's establishment and that has not as yet been unproven. Another Marleau action done unilaterally without public consultation but with consultation with government insiders, has raised some access users' ire. That is his recently-proclaimed one-year trial to reorganize how members of the public's complaints to his office are handled. The so-called "triage" system he has put in place is meant to treat some complaints and complainants differently than others, with a possible not well-defined mediation earlier resolution stage. It's a complex system attempting to streamline complaints-handling that seems to mimic the worst features of Ottawa's not-too-accountable bureaucracy. It will be detrimental to some access users and may not necessarily speed up what has been increasingly long waits to receiving hundreds of complaint findings. Other jurisdictions such as Ontario when they created and refined a two-stage mediation-inquiry appeal process did so after public debates and freedom of information legislation. And their publicly-developed guidelines did not relegate certain complainants to second-class status. They also allowed access users an interim public summary of the secret representations government and corporate interests made in response to public complaints, something Marleau's scheme does not provide. So who benefits from such a federal complaint-handling reorganization? Marleau has also indicated that he wants to soften the effect of all those negative publicly-released department "F" reports that former commissioner Reid developed to annually point out the worst time delay offenders in the federal government. Instead, Marleau will expand the report cards to consider other "balancing" factors that lead to time delays and give the offended departments space to reply. It sounds like yet another ineffective accountability reporting instrument in the making that official Ottawa just loves to have on hand. At the same time, Marleau has not changed the office's secrecy practices of not fully reporting on all complaints handled so that the public can see both the good and bad release/non-release precedents that the commissioner sets. As well, Marleau has not initiated any of his own court challenges. Nor has he been out front in advocating against government secrecy incursions such as legislation that drastically cuts back on public air safety reporting. So 25 years later, we need not only a real "Public Right to Know Act" that puts information disclosure first but an information commissioner who operates more in the open and is consistently expanding openness and fighting the latest secrecy schemes. Ken Rubin has been a long-time access to information user and a persistent critic of the current access legislation. kenrubin@rogers.com The Hill Times

How come Canada’s information commissioner Marleau operates mostly behind closed doors?

Information Commissioner Robert Marleau and his officials have been holding secret meetings with the Department of Justice and Treasury Board to 'work together' to come to an agreement on how they can 'improve' certain features of the access process with

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How come Canada’s information commissioner Marleau operates mostly behind closed doors?

Information Commissioner Robert Marleau and his officials have been holding secret meetings with the Department of Justice and Treasury Board to 'work together' to come to an agreement on how they can 'improve' certain features of the access process with

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