But forty years later and despite promises made by Pierre’s son, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to make this crucial tool work even better, the federal access-to-information system is in its worse shape ever according to a host of witnesses, including Canada’s Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard, that have spoken before a House of Commons committee studying the issue.
The biggest problem, according to those witnesses: Delays. Under the law, government departments are to provide requested records within 30 days of the request. They can take extra time when certain conditions exist.
According to Maynard, the government failed to meet its legislated timelines on more than 30 per cent of the 400,000 or so access-to-information (ATI) requests made in the last year. One Ottawa-based researcher, Michael Dagg, was told he would have to wait 80 years for records he asked for from Library and Archives Canada about some RCMP operations. That particular delay may be extreme, but delays stretching from months into years for relatively routine records requested are now increasingly common.
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