Government transparency and the trade department
Like many people, I’m concerned that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations are being used to launder copyright reform through a secretive international trade agreement and do an end-run around the recent public consultations in Canada. However, it’s really tough to comment meaningfully on the subject without transparency into the process. In an effort to enlighten myself, I filed a couple of Access to Information (ATIP) requests with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).
One of my requests was deliberately wide-open, requesting any communication between the Trade Department and third-parties about ACTA. I’m trying to figure out who’s been consulted, who’s seen draft treaties, and so on. My second request was more specific, requesting the most recent draft text of the treaty as well as a copy contemporaneous with that shared by the United States government with a number of companies and organizations. While draft treaties are exempt under the Access to Information Act, I figured that since the treaty has already been disclosed to some parties, there’d be no statutory reason to withhold that version from me as well.
In response to both requests, DFAIT requested a 6 month extension. To put that in context, the statute allows for 30 days to respond to requests, allowing extensions for specific reasons. My requests were extended under section 9(1)(a), which allows an extension in cases where “the request is for a large number of records or necessitates a search through a large number of records and meeting the original time limit would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the government institution.” I can concede this for my first request, which as I mentioned is quite open-ended. However my second request is quite specific, and I had a hard time believing it could take 6 months to comb through the records. I emailed my contact for an explanation, and was told that:
because of the volume of requests that we have now, and our limited resources, we are taking extensions of 180 days for our requests
This is clearly not acceptable under the Act. Now, it’s not the fault of my contact or even the DFAIT ATIP office, which is under-funded and under-staffed. The contact that I spoke with there was extremely helpful and apologetic. Two years of Information Comissioner reports mention that the DFAIT ATIP office has requested additional funding to keep up with the workload, which vastly increased when the government adopted a policy that other departments needed to consult with DFAIT on any ATIP request which could prejudice Canadian foreign policy/international trade. The Information Commissioner’s latest report on DFAIT does a good job of summarizing the problem. I’m sympathetic with the overloaded workers on the ground there, but management absolutely needs to step up and fix the problem.
Given that the current government was elected on a platform of improved transparency, it is incumbent on them to properly fund one of the busiest transparency-focused departments. Unless, and forgive this baseless speculation, a delay in transparency makes it easier to conduct secret negotiations without the annoying necessity of having to involve those annoying—what are they called?—Canadian citizens.
See also:
- Canwest’s exposé: Foreign Affairs violating disclosure laws: experts
- ACTA timeline