2019-2020 Annual report on the Access to Information Act

​​​​​​​​​​​Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
3. Access to Information and Privacy and Special Projects Directorate
4. Delegation of Authority
5. Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act – Interpretation
1. Requests received
2. Disposition of requests completed
3. Exemptions invoked
4. Exclusions cited
5. Completion time
6. Extensions
7. Translation
8. Method of access
9. Fees and Cost
10. COVID-19
6. Informal Access to Information Requests
7. Consultation Requests
8. Complaints and Investigations
9. Monitoring Activities
10. Education and Training Activities
11. Policies, Guidelines and Procedures
12. Reading Rooms
13. Appendix A: Delegation Orders
14. Appendix B: Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act
15. Appendix C: Supplemental Statistical Report on the Impact of COVID-19 Measures

1. Introduction

The Access to Information Act (the Act) provides Canadian citizens, permanent residents or any person or corporation present in Canada with a general right of access to information in records under the control of federal government institutions, subject to specific and limited exceptions.

Section 94 of the Act requires deputy heads of all government institutions to table an annual report on the administration of the Act within their respective institutions during each financial year.

This annual report provides a summary of the management and administration of the Act within the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) during the 2019–2020 reporting period. It is intended for use by the general public, members of Parliament, and IRB personnel.

2. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

The IRB is Canada’s largest independent administrative tribunal. It is responsible for resolving immigration and refugee cases efficiently, fairly and in accordance with the law.

The IRB is currently composed of four divisions:

• The Refugee Protection Division (RPD), which decides:
• claims for refugee protection made within Canada;
• applications for vacation of refugee protection; and
• applications for cessation of refugee protection.
• The Immigration Division (ID), which conducts:
• admissibility hearings for foreign nationals or permanent residents who seek entry into Canada, or who are already in Canada and are alleged to be inadmissible; and
• detention reviews for foreign nationals or permanent residents who are detained for immigration reasons.
• The Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), which hears:
• appeals of family sponsorship applications refused by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC);
• appeals from certain removal orders made against permanent residents, Convention refugees and other protected persons, and holders of permanent resident visas;
• appeals by permanent residents against whom an IRCC officer outside of Canada has decided that they have not fulfilled their residency obligation; and
• appeals by the Minister of Public Safety of ID decisions at admissibility hearings.

The fourth division, the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD), was established in December 2012 with the coming into force of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act.

• The RAD hears:
• appeals from decisions of the RPD allowing or rejecting claims for refugee protection;
• appeals from decisions of the RPD rejecting applications by the Minister for a determination that refugee protection has ceased; and
• appeals from decisions of the RPD rejecting applications by the Minister to vacate a decision to allow a claim for refugee protection.

The Chairperson of the IRB reports to Parliament through the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

3. Access to Information and Privacy and Special Projects Directorate

The Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) and Special Projects Directorate ensures that the IRB meets its statutory obligations under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act by:

• processing access and privacy requests for the IRB;
• responding to consultation requests submitted by other federal institutions;
• providing advice and guidance to IRB personnel regarding the interpretation of both acts as well as related Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) policies and guidelines;
• liaising on behalf of the IRB with the TBS, the offices of the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner as well as other government departments and agencies on a wide variety of ATIP-related issues ranging from legislative interpretation to details of process and procedures;
• providing input into the development of IRB policies and procedures to ensure that they are in compliance with the provisions of both acts;
• coordinating the preparation of the IRB’s Info Source chapter;
• preparing the annual reports to Parliament on the administration of each act; and
• participating in ATIP forums such as the TBS’s ATIP Community meetings and working groups.

The ATIP and Special Projects Directorate is part of the Tribunal Services Branch and is staffed by a director/coordinator, a deputy director, six ATIP officers and two clerks.

During the reporting period, the IRB did not provide service to another government institution, in accordance with section 96 of the Access to Information Act. This is mainly because of the size of the ATIP and Special Projects Directorate, which is already very small.

4. Delegation of Authority

Pursuant to section 95(1) of the Act, the deputy head of a government institution may by order designate one or more officers or employees of the institution to exercise or perform any of the powers, duties or functions of the deputy head of the institution.

Authority to exercise the powers and perform the duties and functions of the Chairperson (deputy head) of the IRB for the purposes of the Act has been delegated to the Executive Director, the Director General, Tribunal Services Branch, and the ATIP Director/Coordinator.

A copy of the delegation order is enclosed at Appendix A.

5. Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act – Interpretation

The following provides an overview of the statistical information contained in Appendix B of this report.

I. Requests received:

The IRB received 229 formal Access to Information requests in 2019-20, the majority of which were submitted by the business sector. This represents a 1.8 percent increase in volume from fiscal year 2018-19, during which 225 formal requests were submitted. An additional 34 requests were also carried forward from the previous reporting period.

Over the last five years, the number of requests received and completed by the IRB has fluctuated from year to year. However, the ATIP Directorate is pleased to report that, on average, 219 requests were received and 215 requests were completed annually.

II. Disposition of requests completed:

A total of 229 formal requests were completed during the 2019–20 reporting period. The completed requests were finalized in the following manner:

Of the 123,783 pages reviewed in response to these requests, 109,886 were released. To compare, approximately 29,000 more pages were reviewed and 28,000 more pages were released in 2019–20 than in the previous fiscal year.

Cases in which no access to records was provided are attributable to situations beyond the control of the IRB. A total of 20 requests were transferred to other government institutions. An additional 26 requests could not be processed as no relevant records existed under the control of the IRB. Finally, 6 requests were deemed abandoned as the applicants either did not provide the application fee or the clarification needed to process the request.

III. Exemptions invoked:

Section 3.2 of the statistical report outlines the exemptions that were applied in accordance with the Act. In 2019–20, the IRB relied primarily on the exemptions provided for in the following provision of the Act:

• Subsection 19(1) dealing with personal information;
• Subsection 21(1) dealing with operations of Government; and
• Section 23 dealing with the solicitor-client privilege.

It should be noted that if an exemption was applied several times within the same request, it is reported only once in the enclosed statistical report.

IV. Exclusions cited:

Pursuant to sections 68 and 69, this Act does not apply to:

• published materials or materials available for purchase by the public;
• library or museum material preserved solely for public reference or exhibition purposes;
• materials placed in libraries and museums by or on behalf of persons or organizations other than government institutions; and
• confidences of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada.

Section 3.3 of the statistical report is reserved for reporting on the number of exclusions applied in accordance with these sections of the Act.

During the 2019–20 reporting period, no exclusion pursuant to section 68 and no exclusion pursuant to section 69 of the Act were applied by the IRB.

V. Completion time:

The chart below summarizes the length of time required to process the 229 requests completed in 2019–20. Of those requests, 97.8 percent were completed on time.

This means that the IRB responded to a total of:

• 195 requests in 30 days or less (85%);
• 3 requests in 31 to 60 days (1%);
• 19 requests in 61 to 120 days (8%);
• 6 requests in 121 to 180 days (3%); and
• 6 requests in 181 days or more (3%).

VI. Extensions:

Section 9 of the Act allows government institutions to extend the statutory 30-day time limit for processing a request.

During the 2019–20 reporting period, a total of 33 extensions were taken by the IRB. In 31 cases, the statutory deadline was extended as the requests were for a large number of records or necessitated a search through a large number of records and meeting the original time limit would have unreasonably interfered with the operations of the IRB. In 2 other cases, consultations with other government institutions or third parties were necessary and the request could not reasonably be completed within the original time limit.

VII. Translation:

There were no requests for the translation of records from one official language to the other during the reporting period.

VIII. Method of access:

In 2019–20, access to the records was given in whole or in part in 164 cases. Copies of the requested material were provided in 60 of those cases, while in the other 104 cases, the records were provided on an electronic support.

It should be noted that these figures are based solely on those requests for which information was disclosed.

IX. Fees and Cost:

The Service Fees Act requires a responsible authority to report annually to Parliament on the fees collected by the institution. With respect to fees collected under the Access to Information Act, the information below is reported in accordance of section 20 of the Service Fees Act.

• Enabling authority: Access to Information Act
• Fee amount: $5, the only fee charged for an access to information request
• Total revenue: $1,035
• Fees waived: In accordance with the Interim Directive on the Administration of the Access to Information Act, issued on May 5, 2016, and the changes to the Access to Information Act that came into force on June 21, 2019, the IRB waives all fees prescribed by the Act and Regulations, other than the $5 application fee set out in paragraph 7(1)(a) of the Regulations.
• Cost: The total costs incurred by the ATIP and Special Projects Directorate for the administration of the Act is estimated to be $240,208 in salaries. The human resources used for this reporting period are estimated at two FTEs.

X. COVID-19:

The exceptional measures to curb COVID-19 implemented by the Government of Canada have had a minimal impact on the IRB’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities set out in the Access to Information Act. This is mainly because teleworking was a common practice in the ATIP and Special Projects Directorate. The main challenge was to get the requested records from different sectors who had little to no access to them.

6. Informal Access to Information requests

In 2019–20, the IRB processed 267 informal access requests. This represents a 15 percent increase in volume from the previous reporting period, during which 232 requests were processed. A total of 184,533 pages were released to the applicants.

The majority of the material reviewed in response to informal access requests consisted of immigration and refugee decisions that are made available to the public electronically through the website of the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII).

As the majority of RPD/RAD proceedings are held in private, RPD/RAD decisions must be sanitized by the ATIP and Special Projects Directorate prior to being made public, in order to maintain the confidentiality of the proceedings and the privacy of the refugee protection claimants.

ID and IAD proceedings are held in public unless the proceedings are ordered to be held, in whole or in part, in private. Where such an order is made, the decision is sanitized by ATIP prior to it being made public.

7. Consultation Requests

The IRB responded to 18 consultation requests made by other government institutions or organizations in 2019–20. A total of 1,378 pages were reviewed in response to these consultations, and the majority of pages were recommended for release to the applicant.

8. Complaints and Investigations

In fiscal year 2019–20, a new complaint against the IRB was registered with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. Two complaints, received in previous fiscal years (2017 to 2019), were still ongoing. These three complaints represent 1.3% of all requests received and completed during the same period. One complaint was related to processing times, another to exemptions and the third to both processing times and exemptions. Only one complaint was still ongoing at year end.

So far, no significant issues were raised following the opening of these access to information investigations, and no audit of the IRB’s access to information practices was conducted in fiscal year 2018–19.

9. Monitoring Activities

The director, in cooperation with the analysts, monitors the processing times for access to information requests, on a weekly basis. In addition, ATIP staff periodically perform diagnostic activities related to the processing of the various requests received.

10. Education and Training Activities

No formal session was delivered to IRB employees.

11. Policies, Guidelines and Procedures

The IRB did not implement any new and/or revised access-to-information-related policies, guidelines or procedures during the 2019–20 reporting period.

12. Reading Rooms

Individuals who wish to examine records released under the Act can contact the ATIP and Special Projects Directorate to make arrangements to view release packages at the IRB Headquarters in Ottawa or at one of its regional offices.

Appendices​