Information ombudsman's private session stirs up hornets' nest (CP)
Information ombudsman's private session stirs up hornets' nest
OTTAWA — The federal ombudsman for freedom of information has stirred up a hornets' nest by going ahead with a costly private session at the posh Rideau Club to thrash out potential reforms to access law.
The controversy - along with criticism of the way Information Commissioner Robert Marleau has already instituted changes - prompted a New Democrat MP to table a motion Monday calling Marleau to appear at a House of Commons committee.
And one of the best-known experts on access to information in Canada fuelled the controversy further by releasing a leaked copy of the guests that Marleau and Access to Information Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart invited to a "networking" cocktail reception at the Rideau Club Monday night.
The guest list of 73 is dominated by bureaucrats who oversee federal privacy and access to information law, officials who process access requests in government departments and five executives and researchers with a think-tank Marleau and Stoddart hired for a review of access and privacy law.
The two commissioners, who are officers of Parliament and independent of government, are hosting two days of workshops in a private dining room at the Rideau Club.
Their offices are paying the consulting firm Public Policy Forum $48,380 to organize the events and prepare reports, while meals and hospitality for Marleau's workshop alone are budgeted at $3,500. The cocktail night, however, will not cost taxpayers a cent, said Marleau's communications assistant.
"It is being paid for by both commissioners out of their own pocket," said Nadine Welter.
Michel Drapeau, a lawyer and retired Canadian Forces colonel who has become one of the most prominent experts on access to information law, earlier criticized Marleau over the irony of holding consultations on reforming the system behind the closed doors of an exclusive club.
He adds, however, there is more substantive criticism to be levelled at Marleau, a well-connected Ottawa figure who served as clerk of the Commons from 1987 to 2000. Marleau became information commissioner in January 2007 after Prime Minister Stephen Harper named him to the post the previous November.
Drapeau, who was not invited to the Rideau Club session after publicly confronting Marleau over his changes earlier this year, said Marleau does not have the legal right to impose a ranking system for a mounting backlog of complaints his office has received over government delays and refusal to disclose information.
The office will review the complaints and give more attention to some based on what officials will judge to be the urgency, the impact on areas such as public interest and national security, and whether the complaints refer to administrative delays or outright refusals to disclose information.
"The system is paralyzed," said Drapeau, who argued Marleau should not be able to privately rank the importance of access requests according to the criteria he developed based on a report from another private consulting firm.
New Democrat MP Pat Martin said his motion calling on Marleau to appear at the Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics was sparked also by a complaint from a University of Ottawa law professor.
Amir Attaran asked Marleau to investigate the defence department's response to an access request based on suspicions Afghan security forces were beating prisoners who had been transferred to them by Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
Attaran, a lawyer, asked the military last year to disclose photos of the prisoners showing only their "hairdos," with their faces blacked out. But the Defence Department, after earlier refusing to release complete photos of the detainees, rejected the request on grounds of national security and privacy.
Attaran has not yet received the results of Marleau's investigation into his complaint, and was planning to confront him during the Rideau Club session Tuesday, as an invited guest.
Ken Rubin, an Ottawa consultant who specializes in access requests, declined an invitation to attend because of the private nature of the workshop. He said Marleau should be prepared to publicly hear complaints about Conservative changes to the access law.
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