2013-2014 Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD) is responsible for promoting and protecting Canada's interests and assets internationally. DFATD’s specific areas of responsibility include international peace and security, global trade and investment, international development and humanitarian assistance, providing consular assistance to Canadians visiting, living, studying and/or doing business overseas, as well as diplomatic and consular relations, the administration of the foreign service and Canada's missions abroad, and development of international law and its application to Canada.

On June 27, 2013, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) merged with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to become the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD). As a result of this merger, a comparison of DFATD’s statistics with those of DFAIT may not provide an accurate picture of the newly amalgamated institution’s performance.^{Footnote 1,Footnote 2}

In 2013–2014, DFATD received 1,159 requests. DFATD was one of the institutions that received the most requests in 2013–2014, representing about 2% of all requests received government-wide. The merger of the two institutions did not significantly increase the total number of requests received in 2013–2014. In fact, the number of requests received was similar to what was received by DFAIT during the reporting period 2012–2013. DFATD also received fewer consultation requests during the period.^{Footnote 3} It processed slightly more pages per request completed (13 pages).

DFATD’s performance was in general below the government-wide results in 2013–2014.

DFATD completed about 72.15% of all its requests in inventory in 2013–2014. In comparison, about 83.96% of all requests government-wide were completed this reporting period.

More than half of the requests received (53.4%) in 2013–2014 came from the media. An additional 17.8% and 11.8% came from the public and the private sector, respectively.

Additionally, DFATD completed 1,042 informal requests for previously released ATI packages in 2013–2014.^{Footnote 4}

Table 1. Workload

DFATD processed an average of 162 pages per request completed in 2013–2014. The proportion of completed requests that required processing more than 1,000 pages was 3.7%.^{Footnote 5}

Timeliness

In 2013–2014, 126 requests were completed within 30 days or less, representing about 33.8% of all requests completed by DFATD. The proportion of requests completed in more than 120 days in 2013–2014 (33.3%) was also significantly above the proportion achieved government-wide (10.6%) during the same period.

The proportion of requests completed passed the statutory or extended deadline significantly increased to 36.7% (474 requests) in 2013–2014. The principal reason invoked for completing requests late in 2013–2014 related to “workload pressures” (47.7% of the time). It is also reported in the annual report that the labour disruption of Foreign Service Officers resulted in an “inability of appropriately determine the length of time” necessary to process requests. This might have contributed to the increase in late requests.

About 27.4% of requests closed past the statutory or extended deadline in 2013–2014 took an additional 30 days or less, while 18.8% of them were more than 365 days overdue.

Extensions

The proportion of extensions invoked increased. In 2013–2014, a total of 843 extensions were used, representing 0.65 extensions per request completed. About half of the extensions (50.5%) were for 60 days or less.

About 59.9% of extensions in 2013–2014 were taken under section 9(1)(b) (consultations) and 30.5% of them for section 9(1)(a) (interference with operations).

Disclosure

From the completed requests, 9.8% were disclosed entirely. It is significantly below the government-wide disclosure rate of 26.9% achieved in 2013–2014.

More than half of the pages processed were disclosed in 2013–2014 (58.9%).

Exemptions/Exclusions

In 2013–2014, a total of 3,615 exemptions and 363 exclusions were applied, representing a ratio of 3.08 exemptions/exclusions per request completed. This ratio is the second highest of institutions surveyed.

Frequently applied exemptions in 2013–2014 included: government operations under subsection 21(1) (1,157 times), national defence and international affairs under section 15 (645 times) and personal information (548).

Table 2. Performance

Other activities

DFATD conducted training sessions with ATIP offices across the government on the exercise of discretion in the application of section 15 to limit the need to consult with their institution.

Complaints

A total of 124 complaints were received against DFATD in 2013–2014.^{Footnote 6,Footnote 7} In comparison, the OIC received 83 complaints against DFAIT and 18 against CIDA in 2012–2013.

Most of the complaints received in 2013–2014 were refusal complaints (83.1%).

As of April 2015, 15 of the complaints received in 2013–2014 were still pending. Of the complaints completed, 23 were well founded, 2 were not well-founded, 61 were settled and 23 were discontinued.