Key messages

Importance of Access to Information

As we see in the news every day, Canadians are seeking information on government actions and decisions.
Access to information is a quasi-constitutional right and a legal obligation. It is not a service.
This means government must provide the necessary resources for the system, and not subject it to reduced budgets.

When someone makes an access request to an institution and is not satisfied with the response, they have the right to make a complaint to my office.
Through my investigations, my office plays a key role in upholding the right of access to information.
We have been making progress against our backlog. Budgetary reductions will put this progress at risk.

The issue relates to some of the formulas used by the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) in calculating pay increases for collective agreements. TBS could explain these formulas better than I can.
I'm doing everything I can to rectify the situation. My office and I had discussions with TBS officials.
I also submitted an off-cycle budget request through the Minister of Justice in June 2024. We have not received a status update. We were also unable to secure a meeting with the Minister until mid-October, nearly four months after submitting our request.
At the end of the day, the consequence is a budgetary reduction for my office, through no fault of my own.
My team and I have taken multiple steps over the years to ensure that our Investigations program operates as efficiently as possible.
Since my office administers a single program, internal resource allocations are not possible. We have already minimized the funding and employees allocated to internal services.

This is a good illustration of why I have been pushing for an independent funding model.
A better model would be one that does not force me to go cap-in-hand for funding to the institutions I investigate.
Independence is crucial to my role as an agent of Parliament.
As an agent of Parliament, I report directly to Parliament rather than to the government or a federal minister.
The manner in which my office is funded should reflect this independence.
There are examples of agents of parliament who have such a model: the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and the Parliamentary Budget Officer already operate under an independent funding model.