Canada's Access to Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is investigating allegations of systemic violations of Access to Information laws by federal Conservatives as a result of a story in last week's issue of The Hill Times, but Tory staffers also allege the interference continues despite the PMO's edict to all political staffers to comply with the law.

NDP MP Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas, B.C.), his party's access to information critic, said he filed formal requests on Feb. 22 with both Ms. Legault and Brian Saunders, the federal director of public prosecutions, to investigate the controversy after reading The Hill Times story last Monday. Mr. Siksay filed the complaint, alleging "one of the most blatant and systemic attacks on the access to information system in recent years."

An unidentified Cabinet staffer said in last week's issue of The Hill Times that since the Conservatives formed government, "the PMO has been pressuring us to take a hard line on ATIP requests," and described tactics used to pressure bureaucrats to cut down the amount of information released under the law.

Mr. Siksay stated in a letter to the information commissioner: "I believe that these actions constitute a contravention of Sec. 67 of the Access to Information Act, including but not limited to concealing records and directing, proposing, counselling or causing concealment of records."

Ms. Legault told The Hill Times she is launching an investigation based on Mr. Siksay's letter.

"I can confirm that I have received a complaint from the NDP referenced in recent media reports...there will be an investigation," Ms. Legault wrote in an email. "In any case where there is evidence of an offence under our Act I may refer the matter to the Attorney General of Canada as is also provided under our legislation."

Ms. Legault is also conducting an investigation after The Canadian Press broke a story on Feb. 7 that reported on how Cabinet staffer Sébastien Togneri ordered the "unrelease" of a sensitive report on the government's real estate portfolio last July. At the time, he worked for then minister of Public Works Christian Paradis (Mégantic-L'Érable, Que.) and subsequently pressured officials to release only 30 pages of a 137-page document. Public servants, Justice Department lawyers and consultants had agreed there was no legal basis to withhold any of the document, CP reported.

Mr. Paradis recently told CP that the staffer lacked judgment, acknowledged his error, and was stripped of his duties to review such files, but described Mr. Togneri as an employee who has "exceptional Parliamentary skills."

Mr. Paradis' office said that Mr. Togneri was trying to save CP photocopy costs of $27.40 by providing the option of a free 30 pages.

In an interview last week, Mr. Siksay said he has requested an investigation because "it's just been one thing after another that seems to confirm that there is this culture of secrecy that has developed and is being enforced within government."

Meanwhile, Mr. Siksay recalled, the Conservative platform in 2006 had a "frankly spectacular" section on access to information reform, including explicit support for the reforms proposed by former information commissioner John Reid. Since coming to power, however, the Conservatives abandoned these convictions, he said, and have not acted on proposals to improve the access to information system such as the 10 "quick fixes" proposed by former information commissioner Robert Marleau upon his resignation last year.

But according to Tory staffers, recent orders from the PMO to stop interfering in access to information requests are disingenuous, and the PMO's pressure to block the release of information continues.

Early last week, a Tory staffer who asked not to be identified, encouraged The Hill Times to "keep going on this story about ATIPs."

The staffer said despite PMO statements that all staffers have been directed to abide and uphold the Access to Information Act, the PMO interference continues.

"This still continues and staff are told publicly to 'respect the process' but are expected to find ways to thwart the process," the staffer wrote. "Trust me—despite the public musings—political staff were told 'not to interfere,' nudge nudge, wink wink."

Staffers, another Tory staffer said, are very aware they are being "reminded of rules which they know they haven't been asked to apply."

When asked last week if the PMO directs staffers to interfere with ATI requests, PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas said it does not, and that the government "insists" the law be abided. He repeated media lines first heard on Feb. 8, after The Canadian Press article on Minister Paradis' office broke.

"My comments stand," Mr. Soudas said. "Access to information is and should be done by public servants, not political staff. There is a process in place that is administered by the public service, and that process should be followed and respected by all, and it applies to everybody across government including political offices."

A very different story, however, continues to be recounted by Tory staffers.

In last week's email, the staffer said the PMO's issues management wing is the centre of the government's alleged interference in access to information requests.

Rather than simply preparing responses to information released under the ATI, the source said, the government concentrates its energies on stopping the release of the information.

"The environment of openness is covered by a blanket of issues management...the PMO looks at the release of anything contentious as something to be blocked as opposed to something to prepare for," the staffer wrote. "Staff have moved from flagging contentious issues...and preparing responses, to the now carte blanche orders of blocking or obstructing releases."

During 7 a.m. teleconferences, the staffer said, the PMO's issues management wing would routinely give "verbal directions on slowing down, delaying, stopping ATIPs altogether or 'transferring' ATIPs to the centre."

Staffers who questioned or resisted orders to interfere with the ATI system, the staffer said, faced verbal abuse and thinly veiled threats against themselves and their ministers, the source recounted.

"Any push back or staff who dared cross [PMO issues management staff] ... or tried to say that they could not stop it was insulted on the phone before all their colleagues and mocked," the staffer wrote. "Ministers' staff feel that if they don't do as they are told that the PMO can order them to be fired or that if they do not carry out orders, or implied orders, that their might be ramifications for their boss."

Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay (Willowale, Ont.), her party's Public Works and Government Services critic, said she's alarmed at the public's dwindling ability to peer into the workings of government through the ATI. She said this is more outrageous than the Parliamentary prorogation.

"Canadians should be far more concerned about this, because it is so widespread, and goes far more deeply to the root of confidence in government," she said. "Timely and full disclosure of information—real governmental transparency and accountability—are the very foundations of our democracy."

Ms. Hall Findlay said the Harper government should emulate U.S. President Barack Obama, who upon taking office promised "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and ordered that the Freedom of Information onus be reversed, with new guidelines written with a "presumption in favour of disclosure."

Bloc Québécois MP Carole Freeman (Châteauguay-Saint-Constant, Que.), her party's access to information critic, said she was not surprised to learn of the PMO's alleged interference in the ATI system, saying it "exactly reflects a current, recurring and constant practice with this government."

The House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee has studied the ATI system closely, but Ms. Freeman said the Conservative government refuses to engage with them or take their recommendations seriously.

She said the government quite simply lacks the "political will" to improve the ATI system, and that it will likely take a change of government to fix the system.

"The way we function with the Harper government, it's like the population no longer has the right to access information that is legitimate in a democracy," Ms. Freeman said in French. "If they continue to restrain information in this way, I don't know if people understand the degree to which they lose their rights."

jdavis@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times