Access to Info Watch: Information Commissioner facing $500 K in not so "voluntary" budget cuts

When is an ostensibly voluntary belt-tightening request from the government not so voluntary after all? When it involves the annual budget for the officer of parliament charged with protecting and promoting the public's right to know what that same government is doing. 

Just two days before last week's budget drop, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault told a parliamentary committee that, based on an independent review of her current budget, she had concluded that her office simply couldn't take part in the government's ongoing exercise in deficit reduction -- an exercise from which, it's worth noting, agents of parliament are automatically exempt, although one in which they were strongly encouraged to take part. 

According to Legault, last July, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson asked her office to look into possible cost savings. In response, they hired an outside firm -- IBM --- to conduct a full analysis of the current office budget.

The eventual conclusion?

"Given the cost containment measures from the last budget that we had to absorb, and ... our little flexibility, we really couldn't give back any additional money without impacting on the program."  

Legault noted that, as yet, she hadn't heard back from either the minister, or Treasury Board President Tony Clement, who was copied on the report, and had no information on whether her recommendations had been accepted.

But she stuck to her contention that the OIC simply couldn't absorb further cuts, even under aggressive questioning from the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, who mused that every department would likely balk at the prospect of losing money.

In response, Legault pointed out that, unlike most institutions, her office rarely wraps up the fiscal year with a surplus.

"When you look at the budget year over year, there is very little money left," she noted. 

In fact, her internal audit committee regularly asks for budget updates "because we walk such a fine line all the time."

Alas, it appears that the commissioner's eleventh hour plea to be spared the axe was quietly, but categorically, rejected.

Under last week's budget, her office faces cuts of $100,000 in the upcoming fiscal year, an additional $200,000 in 2013-14, and another $200,000 the following year, for a total reduction of $500,000 from her current budget of $12 million.

At just under 5 per cent, that may not seem like much, but as Legault explained last week, there is an "element of uncertainty" when it comes to "complex cases and litigation," which is why her office was obliged to request an additional $400,000 in emergency funding last year.

Responding via email to a query on what the cuts will mean for her office, Legault told cbc.ca that the office will "need to reassess its operations once more, and noted that it may also heighten the risk of judicial review applications based on too-long investigations, which could ultimately result in higher cost to the taxpayer.

She also worries that "system-wide budget cuts" could have a "significant impact on Access to Information" throughout government, citing comments from her predecessor, John Grace, who observed that "as the public service experiences more and deeper budget cuts, the danger is that officials, already cool to the access law, can cloak themselves in self-righteousness."

Grace also predicted that "resource constraints will be seized upon as a respectable justification for ignoring the law's response deadlines."

So, what, if any, avenue of appeal does the commissioner have? In theory, she could take her case to Treasury Board, which is the final arbiter when it comes to decisions related to the budgets of parliamentary officers, although judging from the response by the PM's parliamentary secretary at committee, and the subsequent studied silence of the the Minister for Open Government, that would seem like a bit of a long shot. In response to my query on whether the commissioner would keep up the fight, her office would only tell me that they're re-assessing all options at this point in time. 

One final note: The commissioner is currently in the midst of a comprehensive review of alleged interference with access to information requests by political staffers, a self-initiated inquiry that followed her investigation into similar allegations against Sebastien Tognieri, a former aide to then-Industry Minister Christian Paradis, but soon mushroomed to include other departments, including Foreign Affairs and PCO. 

According to Legault's office, the commissioner still hopes to table a special report on her findings this fall -- provided, one presumes, that she has sufficient resources to do so.