Single source floods CBC’s Access to Information office
A single source has logjammed CBC’s Access to Information office. Of the 500 ATI requests received since September 1, a whopping 450 came from a single source.
This volume means that CBC now has to bring in a consultant to enhance workflows and hire more people to work in its ATI office.
The CBC had not anticipated this kind of volume, having based its estimate on the volume of ATI requests received by organizations about its size and with a similar scope. (For instance, 500 requests are more than the number of requests typically received by the Department of Industry. For an entire year.)
But clearly, nobody could have forseen that a single person or group has filed 90% of the requests, causing this logjam.
Under ATI law, the Corp can not release any identifying information about the requester.
Had this individual or group not filed 450 requests in the first three months, the volume would have been equivalent to what other Crown Corporations have been receiving.
Meg Angevine, the CBC’s Access to Information Coordinator, says as a result of the requests, the CBC can not meet its goal of providing responses within 30 days.
The CBC has hired an ATI consultant to give advice on reorganizing its office and workflow. In the interim, it is actively trying to hire for more positions in the office.
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So…who is it?
We’re not allowed to say, sorry.
But Dan Say has some ideas.
Time to file an ATI request methinks!
Meg’s admission means CBC is in violation of the law. You might have pointed that out instead of implying it was a matter of pride (“We’d have *loved* to meet our deadlines if it weren’t for…”).
Do you think it would be easier for the staff involved to tolerate if a more diverse roster of ATI applicants started showing up?
What about telling us the nature of the requests themselves? It’s one thing if they’re asking how much money you get from rebroadcasting American re-runs, quite another if they want a minute-by-minute count of news coverage critical of Canada’s New Government.
Dan Say merely has speculation. I don’t have 450 questions for the CBC and I am not the source of this claimed backlog, which is the respondent’s problem anyway.
I’m pretty sure that the nature or subject of the ATI requests would also be confidential.
P.S. Nice work on the threaded comments!
Am I correct in thinking that the 30-day timeframe is not a “goal”, it’s the law?
Am I also correct in thinking that the CBC does not consider the 30-day timeframe to be a “goal” when it comes to its own access requests?
Need staff hey? Where do resumes go again?
I don’t know much about ATI so I took a few minutes to read up on it.
So looks like CBC is in violation of section 10 (3)
“Deemed refusal to give access
(3) Where the head of a government institution fails to give access to a record requested under this Act or a part thereof within the time limits set out in this Act, the head of the institution shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to have refused to give access.”
What disturbed me is that I don’t know if Meg Angevine, in her capacity as the CBC’s Access to Information Coordinator, releasing the information and laying the blame on ” a whopping 450 came from a single source”, has violated the ATI further or not?
The fact that a person or organization has the ability to file 450 requests may identify this person or organization indirectly, thus violating the privacy of this person or organization. (the speculations of Friends of Cdn Broadcasting, Joe Clark, et al.)
Of course, how strict should Section 35 (1) be interpreted may be up to the courts. But to me, the sprite of the law has at least been temporarily set aside by Meg.
No one is perfect, including CBC. I just hope all the ATI requests are handled asap as I am sure parliament set up section 10 (3) of the ATI to stop the various government institutions from refusing access by simply delaying.
It’s a right wing conspiracy!
Clearly, this is harassment from both my point of view and the intention of the perpetrator.
Ma Corp has secrets? The tax payers would like to know. Or this is a self inflicted wound to keep prying eyes out.
At $5/per request, that’s almost enough $ to buy a Quebec snowbank…
well not quite enough…but a good start anyway …
OR a pretty decent charitable donation.
hope the cash spent = information that is well used.
If you look at the whole law (see below) there are options for the corp to extend its time limits. I think since thye are new to this it is not unexpected that there are some extra delays. They set up based on the volume of requests received by other departments and by the BBC when they first came under similar rules. One person flooded them with requests, so taking more than 30 days to give out the info is not unreasonable.
Extension of time limits
9. (1) The head of a government institution may extend the time limit set out in section 7 or subsection 8(1) in respect of a request under this Act for a reasonable period of time, having regard to the circumstances, if
(a) 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,
(b) consultations are necessary to comply with the request that cannot reasonably be completed within the original time limit, or
(c) notice of the request is given pursuant to subsection 27(1)
by giving notice of the extension and, in the circumstances set out in paragraph (a) or (b), the length of the extension, to the person who made the request within thirty days after the request is received, which notice shall contain a statement that the person has a right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner about the extension.
If I were one of CBC’s competitors, which are not subject to ATI, I’d be filing more than 450 – I’d keep them coming endlessly. If it costs $5 to file, and probably $100 in person hours to answer, I’d set aside a couple of million and throw the CBC into serious financial turmoil. Good business.
It costs more than $5 to file a request, just try it.
More than 3 months later and I’m still waiting to get a response from the Ottawa office.
Will it cost me another $5 find out why my query has gone unanswered?
Hey “sunshine”, how did you create that link in your comment?
Is everyone able to do that?
Well, THAT’S a responsible use of your own tax dollars!
ATI is a powerful tool, if it takes a **potential abuse** (that cost $$) in the beginning to have a long term working ATI, I will gladly pay the price to create a system that can have a long term check and balance against some black box operations.
The idea that something can be “ATI-ed” should already put some senior CBC executives on alert to do their jobs in a responsible manner. (not that I am implying they are not doing it already)
Of course, there are some CBC executives who will always be more interested in covering their asses. And that is also part of the price to pay and we will just have to sort out those and try to ensure they are not operating above rules and laws.
Turnip,
The situation you describe is easily fixed. Even the judicial system has ways to deal with abusers and the powers that be can easily introduce measures to prevent abuse if necessary.
Thanks for the section 9(1)(a) reference. And the “giving notice” provisions. plus “…notice shall contain a statement that the person has a right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner about the extension.”
Looks good to me.
Anyone know if such measures exist right now in CBC’s case? If so, how many requests would be considered “abuse”? (obviously more than 450…) I wonder if there’s any way to determine intent, if that’s relevant.
Not my tax dollars, but my corporate revenue dollars… don’t tell me there aren’t other broadcasters out there that profit when CBC falters. We saw it during the lockout, among other times, and the reverse may be true during the writers strike.
I’m not sure any board of directors could justify such a move, but do what Kempton calls “black box operations” exist in commercial media? It’s possible.
I’m not even sure what qualifies as immoral in such an environment. Did anyone bid on the Olympics or NHL (or Desperate Housewives) simply to drive up the price? We’ll never know.
I just think that if I were a private broadcaster who could pay a nominal fee to poke my nose in the private business of one (and ONLY one) of my competitors – and have it cost them more money than it cost me! – I’d have a rollicking good time doing so.
I don’t believe they exist but that does not mean they can’t and won’t.
I love it. How many were out there for blood during the Somalia Inquiry. Any idea how many requests were made from the single source of the Commission of Inquiry? How many were giving sympathy to DND? Most journalists were just heaping it on.
This should not have been a surprise to the CBC that there would have been a front end load as it was finally subjected to the ATI Act. This is part of Canada’s New Government and its institutions making themselves more accountable. Accountability and transparency costs money.
When you are providing a competing service in the public domain then you should expect to get blasted. As noted earlier, if I was a competitor I would ask a million questions and do my best to steal every good idea the CBC ever planned. Also, I would be looking for story material. (I sure hope it was Conrad Black that made the requests!)
I say give it about 90 days (if not less) and we will either have a leak or some armtwisting in the Federal Court of Canada. I have no faith that the name of the requestor will be protected by the CBC. It will be leaked.
Allan… I just pasted the whole link into my reponse and some magic blog admin hyperlinked it it seems.
Based on what corporate counsel said, I believe that the nature/subject of all ATI requests will eventually be accessible through a Government of Canada database. So this isn’t true.
Hi Allan and Sunshine, for now we have to manually hyperlink any standalone URLs. There’s a formatting bug in the blog’s design which only affects IE6 (the CBC’s official browser-of-record).
For now, anyone can make a link themselves by using the regular A HREF tags.
“if I was a competitor I would ask a million questions and do my best to steal every good idea the CBC ever planned. Also, I would be looking for story material.”
Competitive information is exempt from ATI, I think for all Crown corporations, but definitely for the CBC. (So requests for stuff like audience research, show schedules, and probably journalists’ research would be refused.) That’s not to say that you couldn’t infer a lot from the non-exempt information, especially budgets, but my money’s still on a kook or an axe-grinder rather than a competing private broadcaster. The potential for bad publicity alone would seem to rule out them doing anything so stupid.
IE 6 being the corporate browser should be the subject of its own investigation!
Ha ha. Corporate stupidity always amaze me. When smart engineers inside Microsoft use FireFox, one has to wonder why some company insist on using IE.
YOU’RE not kidding!
Hey, he’s not. I know a company that requires IE and Adobe PDF Reader 6.0.1 or higher to get your paystubs (out sourced payroll company). To bad I am on a Mac and can’t access IE…. I never see my pay stubs because of their ignorance.
The CBC doesn’t have competitors similar to a private company. While they ‘compete’ for audience and have a desire (mandate?) to affect culture, they have no need to compete for revenue. It’s a lot different than Global and CTV competing.
The beleaguered Canadian taxpayer foots the bill for the CBC.