9 June 2025.
Over the last 20 plus years, different official actors in Canada have conducted repeated reviews of the federal Access to Information Act (ATIA), despite which reform of the Act remains a pressing need. Today, the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD), with the support of 18 organisations and individuals, sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney calling on him to ensure that the upcoming review, due to start later this month, is “genuine and timely” and takes place “under the guidance of an independent panel with a broad mandate to consider all reform needs”.
“The last thing we need right now is another pro forma review of the ATIA, which would simply be a waste of valuable time and money,” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. “During the recent election, Carney promised a review of the Act, indicating that an ‘objective review … would serve Canadians well’; now is the time to deliver on that promise.”
Every independent observer recognises that the ATIA is not fit for purpose. It earns only 93 points out of a possible total of 150 on CLD’s respected RTI Rating, sits in a dismal 53rd position globally out of the 140 countries with right to information laws and fails to deliver on its main promise, i.e. government transparency. Despite that, the 2022 report to Parliament on the last review of the ATIA, conducted by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), did not recommend changes to the Act but instead focused on improving practice. That was a repudiation of the input of independent observers and an insult to the experience of users of the Act.
The Act mandates reviews every five years, which means that another review should be launched later this month. As a duty holder under the Act, it is a conflict of interest for TBS to conduct the review, and this conflict is reflected in the inadequate conclusions of the last review. For us, the “objective review” which Prime Minister Carney called for means a review by an independent panel with a broad mandate and adequate resources to hold proper consultations before reaching its conclusions. Our letter includes a draft Terms of Reference for such a review and calls on the Prime Minister to conduct the upcoming review in line with those Terms of Reference.
The letter is available in English here and in French here.
For further information, please contact:
Toby Mendel
Executive Director
Centre for Law and Democracy
Email: toby@law-democracy.org
+1 902 431-3686
www.law-democracy.org
X: @law_democracy
