Abandon hope ye who file FOI requests here
32 federal agencies and institutions snub digital filing, payments
'Ah, all things come to those who wait,'
(I say these words to make me glad),
But something answers soft and sad,
'They come, but often come too late.'
Violet Fane, aka Mary Montgomerie Currie (1843-1905)
The first line of this century-old stanza is often quoted as a proverb to encourage patience. Few realize the rest of it expresses something more despairing; that is, long waits are often futile.
These four lines sadly apply to journalists’ access-to-information requests, which typically grind on so slowly that a stale response is usually dead on arrival. I once waited 10 years for a briefing note to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Any reform of access to information must attack chronic delays, which subvert the very purpose of a transparency law. Access delayed is access denied. How can citizens hold governments accountable if response packages are delivered two or three governments late?
One part of the fix is ensuring requests and application fees can be filed digitally, via the web. Yet there are more than two dozen federal institutions that are firmly stuck in the era of paper forms, postage stamps, money orders and cheques. (For younger readers, money orders and cheques are signed pieces of paper that tell your bank to fork over money to someone, a technology at least two centuries old.)
I’d like to inaugurate an FOI Hall of Shame to recognize those antediluvian agencies and institutions still mired in analog. But first, some modest praise for Treasury Board’s ATIP Online request service (AORS).
A total of 261 federal institutions now use this central website to accept access-to-information requests and fees digitally. (Of these, IRCC and ESDC use an earlier iteration.) Released documents can also be delivered digitally through the same portal.
The website has been under construction for years, and can be glitchy and frustrating. Shopify was definitely not consulted about its design. But it’s a huge advance on the paper chase that slowed down the filing of requests for more than three decades.
Some 32 institutions, though, have so far declined to get on board. For requesters, filing paper forms and cheques to these holdouts is an unwanted walk down memory lane. The flashbacks are exasperating.
The lineup in my newly inaugurated FOI Hall of Shame includes the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., which received 153 access-to-information requests in 2022-2023. If any outfit should be sensitive to journalists’ frustrations about delays and bureaucratic hurdles, it’s the CBC.
The Mothercorp provides a street address or email address for requests, and has waived the standard $5 application fee. But why not climb aboard the existing system, with its bells, whistles and relative ease of filing?
The Bank of Canada, which received 40 requests in 2022-2023, asks requesters to mail in their forms with a cheque or money order. In other words, the alpha-dog of Canada’s banking system doesn’t accept digital payments. Huh? Maybe that explains the low number of requests.
VIA Rail Canada Inc., which has been subject to the Access to Information Act for almost 17 years, still asks for a $5 cheque or money order to be sent to them. (They got 36 requests in 2022-2023.) That train is late to the station.
Some recalcitrant institutions make it almost impossible to learn from their website about how to file a request. In this ghosting category is Export Development Canada (22 requests in 2022-23), the National Gallery of Canada (16), the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (3), and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (0). The last is deliciously ironic since it was Pierre Trudeau himself who got the Act passed in 1982. Apparently the secret to avoiding access requests is to make sure you provide zero instructions about how to do so.
The list of holdouts also includes Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Correctional Investigator Canada, and the National Arts Centre Corp. The NAC requires applicants to mail in their requests with a $5 cheque, though it waives requests “made by Indigenous applicants, as per its commitment to advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.” Admirable, though no word on how it verifies that applicants are not Pretendians.
Many of these foot-dragging departments are not subject to government policies that require institutions to eventually get aboard ATIP Online. But there are no valid reasons for not signing up. The technology is tested and available. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. And most ordinary Canadians have long abandoned antiquated systems of payment, connection and communication.
Unless, of course, that’s the whole point of being difficult. To make sure nosy citizens don’t come knocking.