Access to Information Act - Annual report 2020-21

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
• Organizational Structure and Delegation of Authority
• Administration of the Access to Information Act
• Statistical Report
• Fees
• Information Holdings
• Implemented policies, guidelines, procedures and initiatives
• OCL Website
• Reading Room
• Education and Training Activities
• Complaints
• Application to the Federal Court
• Time to Process Access to Information Request Monitoring
• Annex A - Delegation Orders
• Annex B - 2020-21 Statistical Report

This publication is available upon request in accessible formats.

Introduction

The Access to Information Act (ATIA) (Revised Statutes of Canada 1985, Chapter A-1) was proclaimed on July 1, 1983. The ATIA gives Canadian citizens and permanent residents a broad right of access to information contained in government records, subject to certain specific and limited exceptions.

Section 94 of the ATIA stipulates that the head of every government institution shall prepare and submit to parliament an annual report on the administration of the ATIA for each fiscal year.

Consequently, this annual report is submitted by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL) in accordance with the ATIA. It describes how the OCL fulfilled its access to information responsibilities during the reporting period from April 1^st, 2020, to March 31, 2021.

In addition, this annual report is prepared and tabled in accordance with section 20 of the Services Fees Act.

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

The Commissioner of Lobbying’s mandate, derived from the Lobbying Act (the Act), is to ensure transparency of the lobbying of federal public office holders. This contributes to increasing the confidence Canadians have in the integrity of government decision making.

The Commissioner's mandate is threefold:

• maintaining the Registry of Lobbyists, which contains and makes public the registration information disclosed by lobbyists;
• developing and implementing educational programs to foster public awareness of the requirements of the Act; and
• conducting investigations to ensure compliance with the Act and the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct (the Code).

Under the Act, the Commissioner of Lobbying also has the authority to grant exemptions to former designated public office holders who are subject to a five-year prohibition on lobbying activities.

The Commissioner reports annually to Parliament on the administration of the Act and the Code. The Commissioner is also required to table to Parliament reports on investigations, which include her findings, conclusions and the reasons for her conclusions.

Organizational Structure and Delegation of Authority

The ATIA provides the authority to the Commissioner of Lobbying to exercise all powers granted under the Act. The OCL’s Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Coordinator is delegated this authority via a Delegation Order, of which a copy is attached in Annex A. The OCL has two employees responsible for the administration of the ATIA, an ATIP Coordinator and an Executive Assistant.

The Director of Corporate Services was the ATIP Coordinator from April 1^st, 2020, to March 31, 2021. The ATIP Coordinator is responsible for the development, coordination and implementation of effective policies, guidelines and procedures to ensure the OCL’s compliance with the ATIA. The Coordinator makes decisions on the disposition of requests under the ATIA, promotes awareness of the legislation to ensure organizational responsiveness to its obligations, as well as monitors and advises on compliance with the ATIA, regulations, procedures and policies. Further, the Coordinator acts as spokesperson for the OCL in dealings with the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Office of the Information Commissioner, and other government departments and agencies. The Coordinator is also responsible for conducting consultations with other federal organizations and other governments within Canada as required.

The Executive Assistant provides support to the ATIP Coordinator on the process of any requests received.

Due to the limited number of requests received, the OCL did not dispose of any service agreements under section 96 of the Access to Information Act during the reporting period from April 1^st, 2020, to March 31, 2021.

Under the Act, the OCL collects information from registrants and lobbyists and the disclosures filed by registrants are accessible on the Registry of Lobbyists at the following address: lobbycanada.gc.ca.

The OCL’s Annual Report and Reports on Investigations must be tabled in both Houses of Parliament. They are also posted on the OCL’s website and on the Open Government Portal under the ATIA requesting that all reports tabled in Parliament be proactively disclosed.

Administration of the Access to Information Act

Statistical Report

Annex B provides a statistical summary of requests under the Access to Information Act (ATIA) received during fiscal year 2020-21.

In 2020-21, the OCL received 51 requests under the ATIA: 28 were processed formally and 23 were processed informally. The 23 informal requests were requests for information that was previously released under the ATIA. 100% of the requests were closed within legislated timelines. The requests that were received pertained mainly to lobbying. One request was in relation to OCL’s internal services.

Sources of requests

Of the 28 formal requests received, 16 came from media, one from an academic organization, one from the business sector, one from an organization, seven from the public and two came from an unidentifiable source, as the requestor declined to identify.

Of the 23 informal requests received, four came from media, two from academic organizations, four came from the business sector, three from the public and ten came from an unidentifiable source, as the requestor declined to identify.

Disposition and completion time

The 23 informal requests were completed in less than 15 days.

Of the 28 formal requests:

• Seven formal requests were closed in 1 to 15 days:
  • For two of these requests, the documents were completely disclosed.
  • For the three of these requests, the documents were disclosed in part as they contained personal information (subsection 19(1)).
  • For two of these requests, the existence of records could not be confirmed nor denied under subsection 16.2(1).

• Three formal requests were closed in 16 to 30 days:
  • For one of these requests, the documents were disclosed in part as they contained information obtained under subsection 16.2(1) and personal information (subsection 19(1)).
  • For two of these requests, no records existed.

• One request was closed in 61 to 120 days:
  • For this request, the documents were disclosed in part as they contained information obtained under subsection 16.2(1) and contained personal information (subsection 19(1)).

• 17 requests were abandoned:
  • All these requests were abandoned in less than 15 days after the requesters were advised that the information they were requesting was not held by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Exemptions

As mentioned, five requests were disclosed in part. This was due to the fact that these requests contained information under :

• Subsection 19(1) that refers to material containing personal information; or
• Subsection 16.2(1) that refers to information that was obtained or created by the Commissioner or on her behalf in the course of an investigation.

For these requests, the OCL processed and released 15,636 pages on which some information has been redacted.

Extensions

An extension was requested for the request that was closed in 61 to 120 days. The extension request was made under subsection 9(1)(a) that authorize the head of a government institution to extend the time limit set out in section 7 or subsection 8(1) if the request is for a large number of records or requires a search through a large number of records and meeting the original time limit, under either of these circumstances, would interfere unreasonably with the institution’s operation.

Consultation from other institutions

In 2020-21, the OCL received 10 consultations from other federal institutions. All these consultations were completed in less than 15 days. A total of 90 pages were reviewed. For eight of these consultations requests, we recommended that the documents be entirely disclosed. For one consultation, we recommended that documents be disclosed in part under subsection 19(1). For one consultation request, we recommended that documents be completely exempted under subsection 16.2(1).

Evolution over the years

In 2020-21, the volume of formal request received and completed by the OCL increased by 215% from the last fiscal year and experienced a decrease of 67% in consultations from other federal institutions.

COVID-19 impacts

As the employees of the OCL could already telework before the pandemic and because the Office receives limited access to information requests, the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a major impact on the processing of access to information requests for the year 2020-21. Therefore, the OCL did not have to put in place mitigation measures.

Fees

The Service Fees Act requires a responsible authority to report annually to Parliament on the fees collected by the institution. With respect to fees collected by the OCL under the ATIA, the information below is reported in accordance with the requirements of section 20 of the Service Fees Act.

On July 12, 2019, the OCL took the decision to dispense the fees for the processing of requests pursuant to paragraph 7(1)(a) of the Access to Information Regulations. Consequently, the 5$ fees for the 28 requests received during the year 2020-21 were dispensed, for a total of $140.

In accordance with the Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act, issued on May 5, 2016, the OCL waives all fees prescribed by the Act and Regulations. No fees are imposed for reviewing records, overhead or shipping costs.

The OCL incurred total expenditure of approximately $ 27,000 for the application of the ATIA in 2020-21. This amount was allotted to staff salary.

Information holdings

In accordance with the Access to Information Act, the information gathered by the OCL is used only for the purposes for which it was obtained.

The OCL is responsible for providing a full accounting of information holdings to the Treasury Board Secretariat and ensuring that updates are provided for inclusion in the Canada.ca publication. This publication contains a description of the classes of institutional records held by the OCL, and can be obtained through public or academic libraries or it may be viewed online on the Treasury Board Secretariat’s website at Canada.ca.

Implemented policies, guidelines, procedures and initiatives

During the reporting period, the OCL did not implement new policies, guidelines, procedures or initiatives related to the Access to Information Act.

OCL website

The OCL’s website available at lobbycanada.gc.ca allows members of the public to access and search the Registry of Lobbyists, as well as obtaining copies of reports such as the OCL’s annual reports on Access to Information and Privacy. Summaries of completed requests are available on the OCL website and on Canada’s Open Data Portal.

Reading room

A reading room is available at the OCL’s office. Our office is located on the 8^th Floor at 410 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 1B7, Canada.

Education and training activities

In 2020-21, the OCL did not provide education and training activities to its staff.

Complaints

The OCL did not receive any notice of investigation from the Information Commissioner's office in 2020-21.

Application to the Federal Court

There were no applications filed during 2020-21 related to the ATIA.

Time to process access to information request monitoring

Given the small number of requests received and processed by the OCL, no formal monitoring system was required during the reporting period.

Annex A — Delegation orders

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act delegation order

October 29, 2020

The Commissioner of Lobbying, pursuant to section 95(1) of the Access to Information Act and section 73 of the Privacy Act, hereby designates the person holding the position set out in the schedule hereto, or the person occupying on an acting basis that position, to exercise the powers, duties and functions of the Commissioner of Lobbying as the head of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, under the provisions of the Act and related regulations set out in the schedule opposite each position. This designation replaces all previous delegation orders.

Schedule

Position

Director, Corporate Services

Access to Information Act and Regulations

Full authority

Privacy Act and Regulations

Full authority

Nancy Bélanger

Commissioner of Lobbying

Annex B — 2020-2021 Statistical report on the Access to Information Act

Statistical report on the Access to Information Act

Name of institution: Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2021-03-31

Section 1: Requests under the Access to Information Act

1.1 Number of requests

1.2 Sources of requests

1.3 Informal requests

Note: All requests previously recorded as “treated informally” will now be accounted for in this section only.

Section 2: Decline to act on vexatious, made in bad faith or abuse of right requests

Section 3: Requests closed during the reporting period

3.1 Disposition and completion time

3.2 Exemptions

^* I.A.:

International Affairs

^* Def.:

Defence of Canada

^* S.A.:

Subversive Activities

3.3 Exclusions

3.4 Format of information released

3.5 Complexity

3.5.1 Relevant pages processed and disclosed

3.5.2 Relevant pages processed and disclosed by size of requests

3.5.3 Other complexities

3.6 Closed requests

3.6.1 Number of requests closed within legislated timelines

3.7 Deemed refusals

3.7.1 Reasons for not meeting legislated timelines

3.7.2 Requests closed beyond legislated timelines (including any extension taken)

3.8 Requests for translation

Section 4: Extensions

4.1 Reasons for extensions and disposition of requests

4.2 Length of extensions

Section 5: Fees

Section 6: Consultations received from other institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and organizations

6.2 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions

6.3 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other organizations

Section 7: Completion time of consultations on cabinet confidences

7.1 Requests with legal services

7.2 Requests with Privy Council Office

Section 8: Complaints and investigations

Section 9: Court action

9.1 Court actions on complaints received before June 21, 2019 and on-going

9.2 Court actions on complaints received after June 21, 2019

Section 10: Resources related to the Access to Information Act

10.1 Costs

10.2 Human resources

Note: Enter values to three decimal places.