Source: Toronto Sun

OTTAWA - Canada’s information watchdog received almost 900 complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. from 2007 to 2010, by far the most levelled against any federal institution subject to federal disclosure rules during that period.

In its 2009-10 annual report released Thursday, the Office of the Information Commissioner said several federal agencies have encountered “challenges” as they tried to adapt to legislation that requires them to disclose information to which taxpayers have a right. Agencies as diverse as Canada Post and Via Rail became subject to that law, the Access to Information Act, in 2007.

More than 80% of complaints in that period were filed against the CBC for failure to make information available, many of them on behalf of Sun Media.

More than 85% of the complaints investigated against CBC were found to have merit, according to figures in the report.

“The information commissioner agrees with us that the lion’s share of our complaints about the CBC’s delays in fulfilling our requests are valid,” said Glenn Garnett, vice-president of editorial for Sun Media. “This is a huge vindication of our efforts to get to the bottom of how taxpayer dollars are being spent.” The CBC, however, said it has made significant progress in dealing with information requests since 2007.

The report was released the same day Prime Minister Stephen Harper nominated interim information commissioner Suzanne Legault to formally fill the information commissioner’s job for a seven-year term. She has been in an acting capacity for almost a year, since the early departure of her predecessor, Robert Marleau, in June 2009.

Legault’s office has tussled with the CBC on a number of fronts. According to the annual report, a new provision of the Access to Information Act, section 68.1, permits the Crown corporation to withhold information specifically related to journalistic, creative and programming information.

Legault’s office says it has been using the provision “regularly.” The commissioner’s office says under the rules, CBC must show the documents to the commissioner to see whether they can in fact be released. Instead, the corporation and the commissioner are battling in court.

“The CBC has taken the position that the information commissioner cannot review (those) records,” Legault told QMI Agency.

Marco Dube, a spokesman for CBC, said in an e-mail, “In essence, CBC/Radio-Canada feels that the creative, programming and journalistic independence prescribed by its mandate require that such information remain inaccessible under the (act). Neither the government nor the Commissioner should have access to it.” But Dube said CBC has worked more effectively to deal with other information requests, improving its processing, for instance.

“We developed our expertise over time and our staff got more experienced as we went along," he said. "The number of complaints for not meeting deadlines has since dropped substantially.” Last year, Sun Media went to court to try to get the CBC to disclose almost 300 records it had requested. The information commissioner backed Sun Media’s attempt. But a federal court judge ruled in favour of the CBC, a ruling now under appeal.

© Toronto Sun