A small step forward for transparency

Library and Archives Canada begins online posting of access-to-info releases

In Canada’s doom-laden realm of freedom of information, where bad news is endemic, a ray of sunshine sometimes pierces the storm clouds.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC), custodian of the country’s document heritage, has surmounted a hurdle that for decades was like a blackout curtain obscuring government records from public view.

Last month, LAC began to post online the archival documents it releases in response to access-to-information requests. The documents can be downloaded directly by anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection.

The searchable database launched with more than 900 recent release packages. By March 31 next year, the digital repository will contain almost all 4,000 access-to-information packages that LAC has delivered to requesters over the last 10 years. That’s more than 2.5 million pages.

As I discussed in an earlier column, the federal government has rebuffed repeated calls to do the same at its 250-plus departments, agencies and institutions, who together release millions of pages to requesters each year. Citizens wanting access to these previously released records have to file formal or informal requests, which often take months. 

Officials claim their hands are tied by two pieces of legislation: the Official Languages Act, which requires all published government documents be available in both official languages; and the Accessible Canada Act, which requires published material be available in alternate formats, such as Braille.

Several private groups have gamely stepped into the breach by publishing release packages in their own searchable databases, such as Open By Default or Canada Declassified. And CBC, which is itself subject to the Access to Information Act, has been posting select ATI release packages online, in their original language only, i.e., no translations.

So the Library and Archives Canada initiative, which posts only in the original language and format, is a welcome breakthrough for access and transparency. The rationale that circumvents the two pieces of restrictive legislation is that these are not LAC’s own records. LAC is merely the custodian of other departments’ archival documents.

“Unlike ATI requests completed by other departments, the requests contained in LAC’s database pertain to archival records that were originally created by other departments,” spokesperson Sasha Patacairk said in an email.

“This is an important distinction from ATI requests completed by other departments, which pertain to corporate records of the department itself.”

“In accordance with accepted international and national professional standards and practices, digitized archival documents are presented in the language in which they were created.”

Library and Archives Canada has lately been cast as a pariah in the federal access-to-information system. LAC once took an 80-year extension on a request for an RCMP investigative file. And the institution tops the annual lists of bad actors compiled by Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard, for its delays, backlogs and the number of orders she has filed against them.

LAC does seem to be turning things around, and the new database is an important step. The institution received temporary funding in 2022 and 2024 to dig out of the access hole. This year’s federal budget proposed another $84 million - split with Treasury Board - to continue this work until 2026-27.

Other big projects lay ahead.

As Paul Marsden argued cogently three years ago, the arrival of the Access to Information Act in 1983 hit Canada’s profession of history like an artillery shell. The new transparency law neutered a previous policy that proactively had made government documents available after 30 years.

Historians and others were thus forced to go through the Act to access older records. And departments that once vetted their own documents before turning them over to LAC now just dumped the lot en masse, many still classified, into LAC’s repositories. That left overwhelmed archives staff to dig out of the pile as best they could, which meant long delays to respond to access-to-information requests, and endless consultations. The history profession has never quite recovered.

The next big challenge will be to reinstate a comprehensive program of proactive release, adhering to the old 30-year rule. There’s been a pilot project focusing on security and intelligence records. And a recent “policy guidance” from Treasury Board urged departments to exercise discretion regarding time thresholds when responding to access requests for older records. The guidance recommends, for example, a 50-year sunset of protection for documents pertaining to international affairs and defence.

But we need a directive, not guidance, that would allow Canadians to reconnect with their history. More importantly, we need the proactive declassification of broad swaths of historical records, rather than the narrow, ad hoc release of material that an access requester happens to be seeking.

In the meantime, kudos to Library and Archives for its database initiative. One might even call it historic.