Letter to the President of the Treasury Board (July 2025)

July 4, 2025

The Honorable Shafqat Ali, P.C., M.P.
President of the Treasury Board
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Dear Minister:

I am writing to extend my congratulations on your appointment as President of the Treasury Board, and to provide some early thoughts on the recently announced 2025 review of the Access to Information Act.

Let me begin by affirming that I am deeply committed to playing a constructive part in this first five-year review of the Act. It is my hope that our offices will continue to engage in a productive dialogue as the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) embarks on this process, so that the review may be conducted as efficiently as possible. To that end, I would like to reiterate some of the guiding principles I believe should be followed for a comprehensive and effective review:

The review must be results-focused

The review that was recently launched is required by law, but even if that were not the case, changes to the Act and the system that supports it would still be desperately needed. Since I took on the role of Information Commissioner in 2018, I have observed a steady decline in the access to information system, to the point where it no longer serves its intended purpose: to enable access to information that can and should be disclosed. Throughout my tenure as Commissioner, I have detailed the various ways in which this decline has manifested itself, both through my testimony before parliamentary committees, and through the reports I have published, proposing solutions whenever I could.

The common thread running through my recommended fixes for the many issues that ail the system is the need for concrete results. And yet far too often, the government has proposed strategies that tinker around the edges of the system and plans with no hard timelines or solid deliverables, ultimately amounting to little. With the Prime Minister signalling that his government will be focused on getting things done, it is my hope that this new ethos will be reflected in the manner that the review is carried out, and that real change will ensue. By way of example, one area where change is desperately needed is the government’s management of information, where various deficiencies cripple institutions’ capacity to provide timely access.

The review must be conducted expeditiously

I expect that TBS is currently in the process of fleshing out the “formal engagement activities” mentioned on the 2025 review web page. As the reports and submissions listed on that same page make clear, there has been no shortage of consultations on the topic of access to information since 2015. In my view, it would be a waste of both time and resources to repeat the lengthy consultation exercise that characterized the 2020 review. As I pointed out in my recent letter to the Prime Minister, there is a broad consensus that an overhaul of the legislation is urgently needed, and widespread agreement on what specific changes are necessary. I have little reason to believe that further consultation would yield any additional insight that would justify a similar delay this time around.

The review must explicitly address shortcomings within the Act itself

Administrative and operational changes are indeed required, but these alone will not suffice. As I communicated to your predecessor, I remain unconvinced that the Access to Information Modernization Action Plan announced last year, with its repackaging of previously announced initiatives, will result in timely and significant improvements. While I fully agree that the areas of focus identified for the 2025 review are worthy of attention, the five-year review mandated under subsection 93(1) of the Act calls for the Minister (you) to undertake a review of the Act itself. I therefore expect that the Act will be re-opened to fully address some of the most intractable issues that have been identified, and I will continue to press for long-overdue legislative changes, including:

broadening the application of the Act to include the offices of the Prime Minister and ministers;
subjecting Cabinet confidences to the Act;
limiting the application of certain exemptions, such as section 21, which relates to advice and recommendations and add a public interest override provision; and
setting out a maximum length of time for consultations needed to respond to access requests.

I have recently established a legislative reform project team within my office with a mandate to provide recommendations that go beyond these proposals, following up and building upon the recommendations found in my 2021 submission to the government’s last review. We will use the experience gained since that submission to craft clear, evidence-based expert recommendations for improvements to the Access to Information Act.

In my view what is needed is a review undertaken in good faith, focused on results, conducted in an expeditious manner and with the goal of proposing substantive changes – that must include legislative changes—required to address serious deficiencies in the access to information system.

In closing, I would like to make two additional points: The Government has signaled that public service reductions are on the horizon. While details have yet to be shared, government leaders must keep in mind that access to information is not a service. It is a quasi-constitutional right grounded in law, and it must be treated as such. In concrete terms, this means that the Access to Information and Privacy function must be resourced in a manner that respects this legal obligation. Furthermore, in the coming months, I will be seeking your support for a funding model for my office like the models under which other Agents of Parliament operate. This is a topic I have raised with your predecessors, and it continues to be my view that a funding mechanism for my office that reflects my independence should be put in place.

I look forward to meeting with you at your earliest possible convenience to discuss any of the points I have raised in this letter or any other topics you may wish to address.

Caroline Maynard
Information Commissioner of Canada

cc.: Bill Matthews, Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada