PACP Committee Report

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Under the Access to Information Act, Canadians can request documents held by federal government departments and agencies. The government has 30 days to inform the requester if access will be given, and if so, to provide the information requested.¹ The government may seek an extension if a large number of documents are requested or if consultations are required which cannot be completed in time. The government must then notify the requester of the additional time required, and the requester may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner about the extension.²

Processing the Requests

In July 2005, the RCMP received a request from Staff Sergeant André Girard, an RCMP Staff Relations Representative, for access to any and all information relating to the audit of the RCMP pension plans concluded in 2004, including the investigation conducted by the Ottawa Police Service. A similar request was made in October 2005. The information was not released until May 2006, almost 10 months after the original request.

While the original request for information was received in July 2005, it was not until 13 October 2005 that the Officer in Charge of the Access to Information Branch, Superintendent Pierre Lavoie, wrote to Louis Alberti of RCMP Legal Services requesting a legal opinion on the proposed response to the requests for information.

On 9 March 2006, five months later, Mr. Alberti wrote to Supt Lavoie saying that the information could be released as long as certain passages were held back because they should be exempt from the request. Mr. Alberti told the Committee that the lengthy review time was due to a large case load. He said, “At the time, the Access to Information Office was processing between 60 and 80 cases which exclusively concerned access requests. So we had to set priorities.”³ Unfortunately, this request did not appear to be one of those priorities.

Shortly thereafter, the proposed release package was sent to the officers in charge of Human Resources and Corporate Management, Assistant Commissioner Barbara George and Deputy Commissioner Paul Gauvin. On 21 March 2006, D/Commr Gauvin wrote to Supt Lavoie to express his concerns. He wrote:

I concur with the release of the Pension Plan Administration Audit in its current format. I am however, strongly opposed to the release of the Ottawa Police Service summary report on Project Probity. This document is full of personal information which is not subject to release under the Privacy Act. Release of this document as is, will in all likelihood, subject the RCMP to civil litigation and cause needless embarrassment to the organization.⁴

The Committee believes it is important to note here that Supt. Lavoie had at one point worked with D/Commr. Gauvin. This calls into question the reasons why Supt. Lavoie felt the need to give D/Commr. Gauvin a “heads up” on this Access to Information request.

In response to this memo, Supt Lavoie called D/Commr Gauvin’s assistant, Inspector Paul McConnell, to say that the report would be released but D/Commr Gauvin could provide input to apply exemptions permitted under the law. This was then typed into a memo and delivered to Insp McConnell. The following day, Supt Lavoie’s superior, Assistant Commissioner Bernie Corrigan, sent the reports back to legal services for a second legal opinion.

At this point, Sergeant Keith Estabrooks, one of the access to information reviewers who had worked on the file, became exasperated, and he wrote a memo to his superior, Supt Lavoie, which stated, “It is my opinion that Mr. Gauvin is in a direct conflict of interest by having anything to do with the release of our proposed package as he is a key player in the pension matter. Just the fact that he has access to the documents is a conflict and unethical.”⁵

Sgt Estabrooks also expressed his frustration to the Committee with the delay in the release of the documents:

I don’t know if you should say interference, but we had a lot of “heads up” going out. We had things like legal opinions, where it went to legal for approximately six months and it sat there. It was returned after the six-month time period. It came back down and I think it stayed in our office approximately a week and it was sent back for a second legal opinion. Surely one legal opinion would suffice on 50 pages. But it just seemed that everything was a stall tactic from the beginning, when it started.⁶

Sgt Estabrooks also said it was unusual to ask for comments from people named in the documents. He said, “It’s very unusual to have someone who is named in a report be able to read what we're going to release or send out and be able to comment on it.”⁷

Supt Lavoie did not agree with Sgt Estabrooks. When he appeared before the Committee, Supt Lavoie said:

In my opinion, even though it does not happen often, there is nothing to prevent a manager from taking part in the processing of an access to information request involving the RCMP and making recommendations. RCMP managers have the right, if not the legitimate duty, to speak out in defence of the interest of the public and of the organization when any final decision is being taken by the coordinator to deny access or to release information in full or in part. So there is nothing illegal or unethical about this type of consultation.⁸

While it may not have been illegal to send the report to D/Commr Gauvin to ask for his input on its release, the Committee believes that it was highly inappropriate.⁹ D/Commr Gauvin was discussed in the summary police report and thus would have had a personal stake in whether or not it was released. Given the sensitive nature of the report and that it was requested by an RCMP Staff Relations Representative, the RCMP should have taken more care in how they processed the report and ensured that it was processed in a timely manner. It is essential to avoid any conflict of interest or obstruction in the release of information.

Unfortunately, it is not just the RCMP’s handling of this access to information request that is troubling. Instead, it seems that the RCMP does not take access to information requests in general seriously. In his latest Annual Report, the Information Commissioner gave the RCMP a rating of “F”, because 67% of requests received by the RCMP were deemed refusals.¹⁰ The Commissioner wrote, “[The RCMP] does not have a coherent plan in place with specific deliverables and target dates. It is experiencing resourcing difficulties in recruiting, training, and retaining qualified analysts.”¹¹ In his 2006-2007 report card on the RCMP, the Commissioner notes that the RCMP has allocated an additional 20 positions to the Access to Information Branch; however, as of December 2006, none of these positions were staffed. In his previous report card, the Commissioner made 19 recommendations, but the RCMP only followed 3 of them. The Information Commissioner concluded that the reason for continuing poor performance was a lack of senior management leadership.

Indeed, Supt Lavoie told the Committee that he had difficulty meeting access to information requests because he did not have sufficient resources. He said:

[D]uring my time as coordinator, I was faced with a very difficult task because there was far too much work and too few resources. Because of a severe shortage of staff, we simply could not keep up. Every month the backlog of access to information and privacy requests increased. This was due solely to the lack of human resources. It caused me enormous frustration because I could not fulfil my mandate under the two acts.¹²

Access to information held by government departments in a timely fashion is an important right in free and democratic governments. However, the RCMP does not seem to believe that it needs to provide its Access to Information Branch the resources and support needed to fulfill its mandate. As the Committee believes that the Information Commissioner is better placed to make recommendations about how the RCMP can improve its access to information practices and policies, the Committee recommends that:

Recommendation 27

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police provide the Public Accounts Committee with an action plan by May 31, 2008 on how to implement the Information Commissioner’s recommendations.

Recommendation 28

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police provide the additional resources needed by the Access to Information Branch to allow it to fulfill its mandate.