Letter to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) (June 2026)

June 16, 2026

Dear Mr. Chair:

I am pleased to inform you of the tabling of my 2025-26 Annual Report, which includes a special report on the investigation I initiated into matters related to requesting and obtaining access to records regarding ArriveCAN between March 2020 and February 23, 2024.

This investigation was initiated following allegations that a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) senior official deliberately destroyed records that may have been relevant to an access to information request. While the investigation ultimately determined that the CBSA failed to conduct a reasonable search in response to six ArriveCAN access to information requests, it also highlighted the manner in which digital work practices can frustrate access rights when governance, oversight and information management frameworks do not evolve at the same pace as operational realities.

My special report reaffirms Canadians’ legal right to access government records and serves to remind public servants that they must treat documentation and information management as a core professional responsibility. This means that decisions and actions must be properly documented, and that access to information obligations require records to be preserved, remain searchable, and not be deleted while access requests are active.

When information is deleted prematurely or stored outside official systems, the integrity of the access to information regime is compromised. Such practices undermine transparency, weaken accountability, and erode public trust.

In line with a resolution on transparency by default adopted by all federal, provincial and territorial Information Commissioners and Ombuds, I call upon the government to take transparency into account in the early stages of designing any new systems, administrative processes, procedures, and governance models and to embed it in their day-to-day operations. I believe that ensuring meaningful access in a digital working environment requires sustained attention, accountability, and action by institutions, policymakers, and Parliament.

I invite you to read my special report, and I trust that my observations and recommendations following this investigation will be useful to the members of your committee in their ongoing work related to governmental operations.

Should you and the other members of the committee have any questions following this letter, please have the committee staff contact Manon Côté, my Manager of Parliamentary and Stakeholders Relations, by email at manon.cote@oic-ci.gc.ca.

Sincerely,

Caroline Maynard
Information Commissioner of Canada