OTTAWA - The federal information czar has chastised the department that serves the prime minister for shirking its duty to help an applicant seeking files on a deadly listeriosis outbreak.
In a finding released Monday, the information commissioner said the Privy Council Office failed in its "duty to assist" The Canadian Press with the access-to-information request.
The staff of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, an ombudsman for users of the access law, took more than two years to rule on the news agency's complaint.
The finding follows a report last week from the commissioner that concluded a former aide in the public works minister's office interfered with an access request for a document about the federal real-estate portfolio.
The listeriosis matter dates back to an October 2008 request for all transcripts and minutes of conference calls in the previous two months on the health crisis that claimed 20 lives and shone a harsh spotlight on food-safety protocols.
Four months later, the Privy Council Office decided the records it possessed did not fall under the request because they were handwritten notes, not formal minutes or transcripts.
The information commissioner disagreed, and asked the PCO to process the notes.
"In our view and based on the definition of 'transcripts' in the Oxford English Dictionary we determined that the terms 'transcripts' and 'notes' are sufficiently similar and interchangeable" -- meaning they applied to the records retrieved by the PCO, says the commission's finding letter.
"As a result of our intervention, PCO agreed to process the notes."
Further delays ensued because of "a number of consultations" and the Privy Council Office's "protracted approval process." The handwritten notes were not released to The Canadian Press until February this year -- 28 months after the original access request was made.
Under the "duty to assist" provision the Conservatives added to the access law, officials must "make every reasonable effort to assist the person in connection with the request" and respond "accurately and completely."
The information commissioner said the PCO failed in its duty by narrowly interpreting the terms 'transcripts' and 'notes' -- and by taking so long to answer the request.
The commissioner said the question of whether the handwritten notes were responsive to the request "should have generated discussions" between The Canadian Press and the PCO's access to information office.
"In our view, PCO should have presented you with the option of continuing to process the records," says the commissioner's letter. "We will remind PCO of its obligation to assist requesters under this provision of the Act."
The commissioner's office said it would also remind the Privy Council Office of the purpose of the access law, since it "neglected to consider and respect" the statute's intent to ensure "government information should be available to the public."
The Privy Council Office declined an interview request Monday. In an email, spokesman Raymond Rivet said the office was "studying the finding."
In the letter, the information commissioner also apologized for the delay in completing the complaint investigation and reporting the findings.
Also Monday, Legault issued a report to Parliament calling for legislative changes that would give her office broader powers to alert police to potential breaches of the law.
Under a loophole in the current Access to Information Act, the information commissioner has no authority to inform the RCMP when a political aide, government consultant or even a contractor appear to have illegally interfered with citizens' right to government information.
Legault also wants Parliament to change the law so that when department officials discover serious breaches of the Access to Information Act, they would be required to inform her office so that she can consider whether to take action. Currently, there's no requirement to inform her, raising questions about impartiality.
The proposed changes arise from her year-long investigation into a separate complaint by The Canadian Press into the political interference by Public Works in the request for information about federal real estate.
Legault found that ministerial aide Sebastien Togneri had indeed interfered, but she could not report him directly to the RCMP for possible investigation because of the Act's narrow wording.
Instead, she recommended that Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose tip the police. Ambrose did so on Feb. 28.
Togneri left government last year after The Canadian Press reported on other access requests in which he appeared to have interfered.
