By Denis Carmel
GATINEAU – Following three complaints made by Teksavvy, a competitive telecommunications provider, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRTC did not respect the timelines of the service provider’s requests for information as required by the Access to Information Act.
The rulings – one of which was issued in March and two in April 2022 – were posted on Teksavvy’s blog.
“The time extension was claimed within the initial thirty-day deadline, however, while CRTC successfully demonstrated that an extension under 9(1)(c) could be justified, CRTC failed to respond to the request not only by the statutory due date, but also by their own extended due date. As such, CRTC was in deemed refusal under subsection 10(3) of the Act,” one of the Information Commissioner’s final reports states.
The Access to Information requests were made in the context of meetings between CRTC chairman, Ian Scott and officers from Telus, BCE and Shaw. The CRTC provided information requested but in violation of the specified timelines, and some requests are still pending even though the deadlines have passed, Teksavvy says in its blog.
The pandemic had an impact on compliance with Access to Information requests for many organizations due, in some cases, to difficulty finding knowledgeable staff for some of the positions.
The Canadian government initiated a review of the legislation in March 2021 and one of the actions the Treasury Board said it would undertake is: “Launch an external recruitment exercise to create a pool of qualified candidates to address existing resource pressures across the GC.”
The Access to Information process has been criticized by many over the years and Cartt.ca has been frustrated in its own efforts to get information we deem should be available.
The CRTC responded to an invitation to comment on this story by offering the following statement: “The CRTC takes seriously its obligations to respond to all Access to Information Act requests. We will not be providing comments at this time on the blog post.”
“These determinations, as well as the CRTC’s ongoing delays and omissions in releasing records pertaining to its chair’s activities, show a disturbing lack of transparency at the telecom and broadcast regulator,” said Andy Kaplan-Myrth, Teksavvy’s vice-president of regulatory and carrier affairs.
“Our understanding is that it is rare for the Information Commissioner to make such determinations. The CRTC chair is the deputy head of the agency, specifically accountable for compliance under Treasury Board policies and directives. He can’t blame staff; the buck stops with him. This lack of transparency is at odds with the federal government’s promise of being “open by default”,” he added.
The Information Commissioner is continuing its investigation into other complaints by Teksavvy.
