2021–2022 Annual Report to Parliament - Access to Information Act

Mandate of the Canadian Space Agency

To provide a better understanding of the context in which the Act is implemented at the CSA, this section gives an overview of the institution's objectives and activities.

The CSA reports to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Its mandate, as set out in the Canadian Space Agency Act, is "to promote the peaceful use and development of space, to advance the knowledge of space through science and to ensure that space science and technology provide social and economic benefits for Canadians."

Mission

The CSA is committed to leading the development and application of space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and humanity.

To fulfil its mission, the CSA:

• pursues excellence collectively;
• advocates a client-centred attitude;
• supports employee-oriented practices and open communications;
• commits itself to both empowerment and accountability; and
• pledges to cooperate and work with partners for our mutual benefit.

The CSA has been a source of inspiration for Canadians since its creation in 1989. In addition to consolidating major federal space programs, it coordinates all the components of the Canadian Space Program and manages Canada's major space-related activities.

The new Space Strategy for Canada (PDF, 1.66 MB) launched in 2019 highlighted the importance of space as a strategic national asset and identified harnessing space science and technology as a priority to solve important issues on Earth. This new plan allowed the CSA to undertake a series of initiatives to support the Canadian space industry so it can take full advantage of the growth in the global space sector, while ensuring that Canada keeps pace.

More information on the CSA's activities can be found at the following: www.asc-csa.gc.ca.

Delegations of Authority

Under the Act, the head of the CSA is the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. In June 2016, some of the powers under the Act were delegated by the Minister to the incumbents of the CSA positions of Vice-President, Chief Information Officer and Access to Information and Open Government Coordinator.

During 2020–2021, organizational changes were put in place that resulted in the delegations of authority residing with the positions of the Chief Information Officer and the Access to Information Coordinator. Following these changes in September 2020, the Information Management and Technologies Directorate, of which the Office of Access to Information and Personal Information (ATIP) is a part, now reports directly to the president of the CSA.

The updated delegations of authority were approved by the Minister in May 2021 (see appendix). The appended grid on delegation of authorities identifies the powers delegated.

The Access to Information and Open Government Coordinator is responsible for implementing the Act on a daily basis and reports to the Chief Information Officer.

Overseen by the Cybersecurity & Information Management Director, the ATIP Office is comprised of the Access to Information and Open Government Coordinator, Access to Information Senior Officer and a Junior Officer.

This office works closely with all sectors of the CSA to ensure the application of and compliance with the Act.

Lastly, the Act allows government institutions to provide services related to access to information to another government institution presided over by the same minister or under the responsibility of the same minister, or to receive such services themselves from any other such institution. However, no agreement for such services, as stipulated in section 96 of the Act, was entered into with any other government institution.

Evolving Role of the ATIP Office

In 2016–2017, the ATIP Office was mandated not only to process requests under the Act and report on the administration, but also to implement the open government initiatives.

Open government is becoming a global priority in improving transparency and making information more readily available to the public. The Government of Canada is no exception in that regard and has implemented a series of commitments in which departments and agencies are taking part. Briefly, the goal is to release as much data and information as possible in a manner that is accessible, interoperable and publicly usable. This vision of transparency is closely linked to the vision for the application of the Act.

Further to a decision to link, access to information and open government and open science activities, the ATIP Office has become a one-stop shop for CSA employees wishing to share information and members of the public wishing to obtain information.

This innovative and effective pairing, which resulted from a centralization of activities, has made it possible for the CSA to optimize its acquisition and application of knowledge.

Request Processing Procedure

When it receives a request under the Act, the ATIP Office consults the appropriate Office of Primary Interest and, when necessary and appropriate depending on the case, Justice Canada, information-related communities of practice, Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) or other institutions.

The ATIP Office uses an electronic ATIP request processing system to record the administrative actions taken, to review the records in question and to apply any exemptions and exclusions.

Various consultations may occur in the course of processing Access to Information requests. The ATIP Office primarily consults third parties because the CSA holds many of their records. The ATIP Office validates the confidential nature of the information in its care with the third parties. The groups consulted are usually other departments or CSA partners or contractors. When it is believed that a record must be excluded under the Act, the CSA will also undertake consultations with Justice Canada, which, if necessary, will seek the opinion of the Privy Council Office to ensure that it is in fact an excluded record.

Once the records have been analyzed and the consultations held, the ATIP Office recommends the application of the exemptions to the Chief Information Officer of the CSA, who is responsible for approving the communication of documents disseminated under the Act.

The records in response to Access to Information requests are then sent to the requesters. Lastly, a summary of the completed Access to Information requests are posted on the Open Government Portal on a monthly basis.

Requests Received and Processed

The CSA received a similar number of Access to Information requests in the current fiscal year, compared with the previous year. The number of requests received went from 57 in 2020-2021 to 58 in 2021-2022.

In addition to the requests received in 2021–2022, 8 requests were carried over from the previous year. Of these 8 requests, half (4) were responded to within the prescribed legislative timelines. In total, the CSA processed 58 requests in 2021–2022, while 8 requests were carried over to the next fiscal year.

We note that the number of requests processed has steadily increased since 2017 but now seems to be stabilizing. The following table illustrates this trend:

Sources of Requests

Requests are categorized into six categories, according to their source (the media, the public, the academic sector, the private sector, organizations and declined to identify).

Requests in the media category accounted for 33% of all requests received, compared with 56% in 2020–2021, and amounted to a 43% decrease for this request category. As for requests from the public, this remains the same at 19% as last fiscal. This year we saw an increase in the number of requests from the academic sector 34%, compared with 9% the year before. The private sector category was used by 2% of applicants compared to 4% last year. The "decline to identify" category was used in 12% of cases, whereas last year it was used in 5% of cases. No applicant used the "organization" categories during the 2021–2022 period.

The following table presents the sources of the requests.

Informal Requests

Informal requests are requests that are not filed or processed by a federal institution under the Act, such as requests for records disclosed in response to previous access requests. A list of these previously completed access requests is published every month on the Open Government Portal, making it easier for requesters to find the requests of interest to them and request them from the CSA. No fees can be charged and this type of request is not subject to a response time. In addition, the Act does not give the requester the right to file a complaint with the Information Commissioner.

The CSA noted an increase in this type of access request since 2013–2014. However, a more pronounced increase in 2016–2017 coincided with the release of the summaries of completed requests on the Open Government Portal. This one-stop portal seems to have contributed substantially to the increase in requests, since requesters can submit them electronically, thus making it easier to access documents that are already published.

The majority (99%) of requests processed informally were submitted following the release of the summaries of completed access requests. Of these, 99% were received through the Open Government Portal.

The number of informal requests processed in 2021–2022 doubled compared to the previous year. In fact, 99 requests were received this year compared to 50 last year.

A total of 82% of requests were answered within 15 days or less, 17% were answered within 16–30 days, while 1% were answered within 61–120 days.

The following chart shows the variances in informal requests since it became a requirement that federal institutions keep track of them for their statistical reports:

Reasons for Declining to Act on a Request

Changes to the Act now allow institutions to request authorization from the Information Commissioner to decline to act on a request that is vexatious, is made in bad faith, or is otherwise an abuse of the right to make a request for access (section 6.1). The CSA did not file a request to this effect with the Information Commissioner in 2021–2022.

Processing Times

The Act stipulates that access to information requests must normally be responded to within 30 calendar days. Among the requests processed in 2021–2022, 26 requests (45%) received a reply within the timeframe. This proportion is mainly due to the extensions that were needed to complete the consultations required to process the requests. The following table illustrates the processing times for the current year.

It should also be noted that the Act provides for extended timeframes for some requests if consultations are needed with third parties or other organizations. Given the nature of the records requested from the CSA in 2021–2022, 30 processed requests required such consultations. Therefore, factoring in these extensions authorized by the Act, 82.8% of the requests received replies within the prescribed timeframes.

Disposition of Requests

Of the 58 requests processed this year:

• 25 requests (43%) resulted in full disclosure;
• 22 requests (38%) resulted in partial disclosure; and
• 1 request (2%) was entirely exempted.

For the 10 other requests, 3 were abandoned by the requester, 5 did not locate any existing records and 2 were transferred to other departments because the requested documents related more to that department and it agreed to respond to the request.

The following table shows all of the provisions that were involved.

Exemptions and Exclusions Invoked

Of the 58 requests processed this year, 23 requests required exemptions.

The following table shows the frequency of exemptions and exclusions invoked in 2021–2022 for the 23 requests disclosed in part. Note that more than one section may apply to a given request.

Format of Information Disclosed

In 2021–2022, a total of 48 requests resulted in the disclosure of records. All of those requests were disclosed electronically. As in previous years, none of the records were consulted in the CSA's reading room.

Pages Reviewed and Disclosed

The number of pages disclosed can vary considerably from year to year, depending on the subject of the requests and the amount of relevant documents held by the CSA.

This year, the number of pages disclosed doubled compared to last 2020-2021. A total of 1665 pages were disclosed in 2021–2022, compared with 814 in 2020–2021. This increase is also reflected in the average pages disclosed per request; in 2020–2021 the average was 20 pages, while for 2021–2022 it is 35 pages per request.

The majority of processed requests were less than 100 pages in length (88%), a small decrease in comparison to last year's rate (93%). This year 2 requests were over 501 pages.

Consultations and Extensions

The CSA collects some third-party information due to its relationship with different partners in various projects.

Therefore, it is not unusual for the requests processed to involve consultation with third parties and, consequently, lead to time extensions under the Act. The CSA consults third parties and sometimes other federal institutions with the aim of providing as much information as possible, in accordance with the spirit and letter of the Act. The complexity level is also evidenced by the fact that some of the requests require consultations with more than one entity.

In 2021–2022, 30 processed requests were somewhat complex owing to the need for consultations or legal advice. This number is higher than last year when 11 requests required consultations. All requests processed involving a certain level of complexity required an external consultation.

The requesters for each of these requests were informed of the extension, as specified in the Act.

Consultations Received from Other Federal Institutions

In 2021–2022, the CSA received 38 consultation requests from other departments compared to the previous year as we only received 22 consultations in 2020-2021. This represents a 73% increase over the previous year.

In addition to the consultation requests received in 2021–2022, one request was carried forward from the previous year. In total, the CSA processed 38 requests in 2021–2022, while only one was carried over to the next fiscal year.

Moreover, the number of pages processed as part of these consultations has significantly increased from 564 pages in 2020–2021 to 3,176 pages in 2021–2022. This constitutes an increase of almost 5.5 times more than what was processed last year. This increase had an impact on the average pages processed; in fact, in 2020–2021 the average was 25 pages per request, while for the year 2021–2022 the average was 83 pages per request.

For the most part, the CSA's processing times for these consultations were less than 30 days (89%) most specifically :

• 24 requests (63%) received a reply within 1 to 15 days;
• 10 consultations (26%) received a reply within 16 to 30 days;
• 2 consultations (5%) were processed within 31 to 60 days;
• 1 consultation request (3%) received a reply within 61 to 120 days; and
• 1 consultation (3%) received a reply later than 120 days.

The following graph shows the variance in the number of consultation requests over the past five years.

Consultations Regarding Cabinet Confidences

This year 3 requests with Legal Services and Justice Canada required consultations to determine the application of exclusions. These consultations required 61 to 120 days of processing.

Impact of COVID-19

Throughout the year, the CSA was able to receive and process requests, despite the exceptional situation of COVID-19. Request processing had already undergone a digital transition before the pandemic. This has made it possible to continue processing with teleworking resources. The processing of requests was possible, regardless of the transmission channels, the level of classification of the information and the format of the documents to be processed.

Complaints

This year, two complaints were referred to the CSA under section 32 of the Act alleging that the CSA did not respond to requests within the time limits.

In 2022–2023, for one of the complaints, the Office of the Information Commissioner ceased to investigate following the disclosure of the requested information within the extension deadlines. There are no active complaints from previous fiscal years.

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act Delegation Order

The Minister of Industry, pursuant to subsections 95(1) of the Access to Information Act and 73(1) the Privacy Act, hereby designates the persons holding the positions set out in the schedule hereto, or the persons occupying on an acting basis those positions, to exercise the powers and functions of the Minister as the head of a government institution, under the section of the Acts set out in the schedule opposite each position. This Delegation Order supersedes all previous Delegation Orders

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act Delegation Order

The Minister of Industry Canada, pursuant to section 73 of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, hereby designates the persons holding the positions set out in the schedule hereto, or the persons occupying on an acting basis those positions, to exercise the powers and functions of the Minister as the head of a government institution, under the section of the Acts set out in the schedule opposite each position. This Delegation Order supersedes all previous Delegation Orders

Section 1: Requests Under the Access to Information Act

Section 2: Informal Requests

Section 3: Applications to the Information Commissioner on Declining to Act on Requests

Section 4: Requests Closed During the Reporting Period

Section 5: Extensions

Section 6: Fees

Section 7: Consultations Received From Other Institutions and Organizations

Section 8: Completion Time of Consultations on Cabinet Confidences

Section 9: Investigations and Reports of finding

Section 10: Court Action

Section 11: Resources Related to the Access to Information Act