Eye on the Legislative Agenda

Pre-Budget Consultations 2008

In August 2008, the Institute presented its submission on pre-budget consultations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. All submissions were limited to five pages and only one recommendation. The Institute recommended that:

The federal government invest more wisely in the public service and in strengthening Canada’s capacity for innovation by increasing its investment in the direct and indirect costs of basic research in the natural sciences, engineering, health sciences, humanities and social sciences through the granting councils and government science-based departments and agencies and not by simply delegating spending to the private sector which will end up costing more in the long term.

The Access to Information Act

Also in August 2008, the Institute submitted the following recommendations to the Information Commissioner on proposed improvements to the Access to Information Act.

1. An Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request to a department or agency should be responded to in full within 60 days.
2. An investigation into a complaint of the Information Commissioner’s office should be limited to sixty days.
3. The Information Commissioner has the authority to compel a department or agency to release documents to the complainant.
4. The Act should make clear that exemptions for advice do not include factual information. Examples are provided in the main text of the brief.
5. Government plans for the management of personnel and administration of their institutions, where these have not been put into place or no decision has been made, should be accessible after a period of three years.
6. An analysis should be conducted of the number of complaints vis-à-vis the available investigative resources over the past five years in the Information Commissioner’s office.

All Institute briefs are available at www.pipsc.ca