Information commissioner faces $700K funding shortfall, says system is 'overwhelmed'

Canada's information commissioner says her office is facing a $700,000 funding shortfall that could impact its ability to investigate complaints about government transparency and accountability.

Canada's information commissioner says her office is facing a $700,000 funding shortfall that could impact its ability to investigate complaints about government transparency and accountability.

"Basically this reduction in my budget will spell longer delays for complainants who are seeking information from government institutions," information commissioner Caroline Maynard told members of Parliament on Thursday. "Now is not the time for bureaucratic penny-pinching."

Speaking before Parliament's standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics, Maynard said the shortfall represents five per cent of her office budget. She blamed the "unacceptable predicament" on funding calculations used by Canada's Treasury Board Secretariat.

"I cannot overstate the seriousness of the situation I am currently faced with," Maynard wrote in a May 14 letter to the Treasury Board Secretariat. "For a small organization like the [Office of the Information Commissioner], where every employee plays a critical role in achieving our objectives and fulfilling our mandate, even a small reduction in personnel will significantly strain our operational capacity at a time when the access to information system is under pressure like never before."

As information commissioner of Canada, Maynard is an independent ombudsperson tasked with upholding Canada's freedom of information laws, which allow individuals and corporations to request government records through what's known as an access to information request. Often used by journalists and academics, the process has been criticized for being slow and overly secretive.

Appearing on CTV News Channel's Power Play on Friday with guest host Mike Le Couteur, Maynard underscored that access to information is a semi-constitutional right for Canadians.

"If they are not allowing me to have sufficient resources to fulfill that independent mandate, it does give a sense that it's not a priority for this government," Maynard said. "Unfortunately, we've seen that no matter who is in power, I have to say, it's very difficult for a government to be completely transparent when ... they have control over the information."