Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Access to Information Act 2020-2021

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Purpose of the Access to Information Act
  • Mandate of the Institution
• Organizational Structure
• Delegated Authorities
• Performance and Statistics
  • Impact of COVID-19
  • Number of Requests
  • Deemed Refusal Rate
  • Completion Time
  • Staffing
  • Disposition of Completed Requests
  • Extensions
  • Consultations from Other Institutions
• Fees and Costs
• Training and Awareness
• Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives
• Complaints, Audits, and Investigations
  • Judicial Review
• Monitoring Compliance
• Annex A: Designation Order
• Annex B: Global Affairs Canada 2020-2021 Statistical Report

Introduction

We are pleased to table the Annual Report to Parliament on the administration of the Access to Information Act (the Act) for fiscal year 2020-2021, as required under section 94 of the Act.

This report is also prepared and tabled in accordance with section 20 of the Service Fees Act.

Note: The Department is referred to in this report as Global Affairs Canada. Its legal name, however, remains the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, as set out in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act.

Purpose of the Access to Information Act

The Access to Information Act gives Canadian citizens and permanent residents, as well as individuals and corporations present in Canada, the right to seek access to federally-controlled information and records.

Mandate of the Institution

Global Affairs Canada is Canada’s face to the world, working to advance Canada’s political and economic interests in the international community as well as to apply Canadian experience to help address global issues.

The Department's legal mandate, as set out in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, SC 2013, c. 33, s. 174, is to:

• conduct all diplomatic and consular relations on behalf of Canada;
• conduct all official communication between the Government of Canada and the government of any other country and between the Government of Canada and any international organization;
• conduct and manage international negotiations as they relate to Canada;
• coordinate Canada’s international economic relations;
• foster the expansion of Canada’s international trade and commerce;
• foster sustainable international development and poverty reduction in developing countries and provide humanitarian assistance during crises;
• coordinate the direction given by the Government of Canada to the heads of Canada’s diplomatic and consular missions;
• manage Canada’s diplomatic and consular missions;
• administer the foreign service of Canada;
• foster the development of international law and its application in Canada’s external relations.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs is also responsible for the Export and Import Permits Act, RSC 1985, c. E-19, which authorizes the government to control and monitor the trans- border flow of specified goods, the Special Economic Measures Act, SC 1992, c. 17, which authorizes the government to apply economic sanctions in response to a serious threat to international peace and security, and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act , S.C. 2017, c. 21, for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of foreign nationals responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.

The Department also provides administrative support to other federal government institutions with personnel abroad.

Organizational Structure

The Access to Information and Privacy Protection (ATIP) Division is responsible for the administration of the Act, including the processing of requests and consultations. The Director of the ATIP Division reports to the Corporate Secretary, who in turn reports to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In 2020-2021, the ATIP Division had 57 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) positions to fulfill the Department’s obligations under both the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. During most of the fiscal year, the Division’s staff included up to three consultants and one student.

The Division’s staffing structure consists of a director, five deputy directors, nine team leaders, one manager, one administrative assistant, thirty-two analysts, three system administrators, one systems analyst and four clerks.

The Division is organized into five units in order to fulfill its Access to Information and Privacy responsibilities. During the reporting period each unit was headed by one or more deputy directors.

• The Operational Unit consists of ATIP processing teams, each under the supervision of a team leader. These teams are comprised of analysts who process and review access, privacy, and consultation requests.
• The Privacy Policy Team deals directly with privacy matters such as breaches, departmental complaints, privacy impact assessments (PIAs), and requests for privacy advice.
• The Policy and Governance Team coordinates process modernization, procedural updates, and training.
• The Business Practices and Systems Unit processes incoming and outgoing ATIP correspondence, performs imaging services, provides technical support, and is responsible for other administrative tasks.
• Finally, the Division has a dedicated Complaints Team which processes legacy complaints and works closely with the Office of the Information Commissioner.

Under section 96 of the Access to Information Act institutions reporting to the same minister can partner to share request-processing services. As of the 2020-2021 fiscal year, Global Affairs Canada has not entered into any such service sharing agreements.

Delegated Authorities

Consistent with Section 95 of the Access to Information Act, the Minister’s authority is delegated to the deputy ministers, to the Corporate Secretary, to the Director of the ATIP Division, and to the deputy directors of the ATIP Division.

A copy of Global Affairs Canada’s signed Delegation Order is provided in Annex A.

Performance and Statistics

Impact of COVID-19

The Lockdown

This year’s performance should be understood within the context of the substantial impact COVID-19 had on ATIP operations.

Beginning on March 16, 2020, in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, Global Affairs Canada employees who were not delivering critical government operations and services to Canadians were required to work from home. Because Global Affairs Canada houses its ATIP processing software and records on a classified network accessible exclusively from the office, and ATIP was not a designated critical service, the lockdown resulted in a prolonged interruption of services that impacted the Department’s ability to meet legislative deadlines. During the March to June 2020 period, a small policy and governance team and management team remained operational from home, performing administrative tasks, such as notifying stakeholders and requesters of anticipated delays in meeting legislative due dates.

In June 2020, a limited number of ATIP employees was granted access to the building on an exceptional basis, triggering the resumption of some ATIP services. In September 2020, the remaining staff of the ATIP Division were reintegrated into the office, bringing the Division back to near pre-COVID capacity some six months after the lockdown had begun. At the same time, access to the building remained constrained for employees in the offices of primary interest (OPIs) with ongoing impacts on service delivery.

The Division was incorporated into the Business Continuity Plan on November 6, 2020, thus ensuring the continued delivery of ATIP services in the future.

Opportunity in Change

While the pandemic substantially impacted the Department’s ability to meet legislative timelines, it also pointed toward new investment opportunities and the redesign of our processes and policies. In a matter of weeks, paper was virtually eliminated; the decades-old system of OPIs delivering their documents in hard copy form was replaced with an electronic system. In addition, investments were made in IT infrastructure to enable unclassified ATIP requests to be processed on an unclassified system, accessible from home. This unclassified system became operational in October 2021.

Future lockdowns, no matter how severe or sudden, will not result in substantial operational delays in the processing of unclassified ATIPs.

For more comprehensive information of the measures taken to re-establish processing capability in the wake of COVID-19, refer to the “Policies, Guidelines and Procedures” section of this report.

Number of Requests

In 2020-2021, the Department received 754 new requests for information under the Access to Information Act, a decrease of 48% compared to the 2019-2020 fiscal year and of 49% compared to the average of the previous three reporting periods. In addition, 662 requests were carried over from the previous fiscal year, for a total of 1,416 active requests.

During the same reporting period, 520 requests were completed, a decrease of 59% compared to the 2019-2020 fiscal year and of 62% compared to the average of the previous three reporting periods. This decrease is due to an unusually high performance in the fiscal year 2017-2018 and the impact of COVID-19 in fiscal year 2020-2021.

The carry-over of active files at the end of fiscal year 2020-2021 was 896.

Deemed Refusal Rate

The Department’s deemed refusal rate in 2020-2021 (i.e., the percentage of Access to Information requests that received a response beyond the deadline required under the Act) was 82%. This means that 18% of the Department’s responses to Access to Information requests were provided to requesters on time. The deemed refusal percentage for the reporting period increased by 59 percentage points compared to the previous reporting period.

Completion Time

During the reporting period, the Department was able to close a total of 28 requests in 15 days or less (5%), 18 requests within 1630 days (4%), 14 requests within 31-60 days (3%), 49 requests within 61-120 days (9%), 68 requests within 121-180 days (13%), 178 requests within 181-365 days (34%), and 165 requests took over 365 days to complete (32%).

Staffing

In 2020-2021, the Division had approximately 46 FTEs working on Access to Information requests. This represented a 6% decrease from the previous reporting period.

Disposition of Completed Requests

Of the 520 Access to Information requests closed in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, 64 were all disclosed (12.3%), 270 were disclosed in part (51.9%), 2 were all exempted (0.4%), 1 was all excluded (0.2%), 64 had no records in existence (12.3%), 5 were transferred

Extensions

During the reporting period, the Department took extensions on 374 requests. The reasons for extension include 134 extensions taken under section 9(1)(a) for interference with operations, 222 extensions were invoked under section 9(1)(b) for required consultations, and 18 extensions were taken under section 9(1)(c) for third party consultations.

Consultations from Other Institutions

Given its mandate and various responsibilities at the international level, the Department played a key role under the Act on behalf of other institutions of the Government of Canada. Specifically, the Department consulted foreign governments and organizations on behalf of other federal government institutions when the latter needed to determine whether they could release records that originated abroad. During the reporting period, the Department received 232 consultations from other government institutions, comprising over 1,952 pages, as well as 15 requests from other organizations comprising 41 pages.

During the reporting period, the Department closed 152 consultation requests and reviewed 8,770 pages as a result. Of the consultation requests closed this fiscal year, 1 request was closed in 15 days or less (0.7%), 3 requests within 16-30 days (2%), 3 requests within 31-60 days (2%), 21 requests within 61-120 days (13.8%), 14 requests within 121-180 days (9.2%), 56 requests within 181-365 days (36.8%), and 54 requests took over 365 days to complete (35.5%).

Fees and Costs

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 under the Access to Information Act, the information below is reported in accordance with the requirements of section 20 of the Service Fees Act.

Enabling authority: Access to Information Act

Fee amount: $5

Total Revenue: $2,860

Fees waived: In order to address requests that may produce a high volume of records, pertain to multiple subjects, or may result in a duplication of efforts, the Department separates pre-existing requests and waives additional application fees. In 2020-2021, the Department waived $910 for 182 requests.

The total cost of administering the Access to Information Act in fiscal year 2020-2021 was $4,334,288. These costs are comprised of $3,412,279 in salaries and overtime, as well as operating costs totaling $812,008, which includes $651,151 in professional service contracts.

Training and Awareness

The ATIP Division worked to provide analysts the required tools and training to perform their jobs effectively. The ATIP Division continues to develop tools and guidance to assist analysts in their application of the Access to Information Act and ensure consistency of approach. Internal training initiatives offered to staff this year included a three-day course on the Access to Information Act as well as a three-day course on the Privacy Act offered by an ATIP specialist. In total, there were 32 training registrations for these courses amongst ATIP staff.

The ATIP Division benefited from its Professional Development Program, which allows the Department to train and promote its analysts from junior to senior levels. This program has been very successful in addressing recruitment, retention and succession planning issues. During the fiscal year, approximately 16 employees were participating in the program and further recruitment was underway. Near the end of this fiscal year, a review of the current Professional Development Program was launched.

The ATIP Division continued to work closely with internal clients as they too adapted to changes in the ATIP processing procedures. In order to facilitate the transition to the new electronic processes, the ATIP Division scaled up the training it offered to the wider Department. Initial stages of the training initiative were focused on training staff within the ATIP Division in the new processes. This training was then expanded to include ATIP liaison officers. Finally, the ATIP Division provided a series of training offerings available to the entire Department, targeted toward subject-matter experts.

Throughout this wider initiative, the ATIP Division has continued to offer training at the divisional level in order to address the specific business and operational needs of the individual groups within the Department. Further, the ATIP Division frequently engaged in informal individual training as immediate needs manifested themselves.

In addition, during this reporting period, 106 employees successfully completed an online interactive ATIP awareness tutorial, developed in collaboration with the Canadian Foreign Service Institute.

Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives

Despite the operational challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the ATIP Division has maintained its commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. In the previous fiscal period, the Department had engaged a change-management consultant to advise on process modernization. In order to take advantage of future IT infrastructure and new electronic processes, the modernization project undertook to evaluate the existing processes, identified inefficiencies, and conceptualized new workflows that would improve the overall operational performance of the Division.

In order to adapt to the majority of OPIs teleworking, the ATIP Division converted previous paper-based tasking procedures to electronic processes. Network-based document exchange mechanisms were implemented, best practices consultations were carried out with other Departments, and new documentation was created and communicated to OPIs. This was a major step in the resumption of the tasking and consulting process between the ATIP Division and the OPIs resulting from operational interruptions during the initial months of the pandemic.

Incoming and outgoing correspondence also transitioned to an electronic process, diminishing the use of paper and enabling email responses to a majority of ATIP requests.

At the end of the 2019-2020 fiscal year, the ATIP Division began a telework pilot project within the Privacy team and the Policy and Governance unit. Unlike the processing teams, this pilot project allowed these groups to maintain full functionality during the early days of the pandemic.

The Division also launched an ambitious IT project to allow for the processing of unclassified ATIP records remotely. This project involved numerous regulatory and administrative steps and included the procurement and installation of new computer servers. Although this project was only in its infancy when the COVID-19 lockdown first occurred, the pandemic provided the impetus to prioritize and operationalise the project by October 2021.

The intake process was restructured. Initially the Unit was comprised of a team leader, two senior analysts and four to five intake officers. It was determined that the process would be more efficient by integrating an intake officer into each processing team. This approach further removed the need to dedicate a team leader and experienced ATIP analysts solely to the Intake unit.

Complaints, Audits, and Investigations

During fiscal year 2020-2021, 51 complaints were made to the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada regarding Access to Information requests to the Department. The reasons for the complaints were as follows:

Over the course of the reporting period, 82 complaints against the Department were closed. The findings on closed complaints were as follows:

The ATIP Division continued to operate a dedicated team to manage complaints from the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC). This team serves as the primary point of contact between Global Affairs Canada and the OIC; the team continues to work closely and collaboratively to strengthen relationships and improve Global Affairs Canada’s ATIP program performance.

Judicial Review

On July 18, 2019, an Application for Judicial Review under Section 41 of the Access to Information Act was filed with the Federal Court of Canada (T-1170-19 Shin Imai v.

Minister of Foreign Affairs). The review was still before the Federal Court at the end of the reporting period.

On November 27, 2020, an Application for Judicial Review under Section 41 of the Access to Information Act was filed with the Federal Court of Canada (T-1450-20 Michael Petrou v. Minister of Foreign Affairs). The applicant discontinued the case on February 4, 2021.

Monitoring Compliance

The Department has established internal procedures and tools to help ensure timely processing of ATIP requests.

The Division prepares, and distributes to ATIP management, a weekly statistics report which tracks the number of requests received and closed, as well as any emerging trends and performance statistics. The report also allows for comparison of workload and completion rates in relation to the previous year in order to identify changes in ATIP processing.

Additionally, an active tasking report is posted weekly to identify all current active taskings within the Department. This report is available for all offices of primary interest to view and lists all open taskings by bureau, highlighting late files.

Finally, every week a report shared within the Department that includes summaries of upcoming access to information requests soon to be disclosed and the proposed packages available for review.

Annex A: Designation Order

Annex B: Global Affairs Canada 2020-2021 Statistical Report

Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act

Name of institution: Global Affairs Canada

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

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. TBS/SCT 350-62

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

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