Senate committee hears from information commissioner on residential schools records access
A Senate committee exam‐ ining barriers to the re‐ lease of records of deaths at residential schools heard Tuesday that federal departments and agencies should make information disclosure processes more accessible and informal.
"We heard that the pri‐ vacy and information regimes cannot work if the government itself does not believe in them," said Sen. Brian Francis, chair of the standing committee on In‐ digenous Peoples, who is from Lennox Island First Na‐ tion on P.E.I.
"And what is needed is leaders committed to open‐ ness and transparency who will provide guidance and clear objectives to the de‐ partment and agencies."
Last summer, the commit‐ tee issued an interim report studying the work of the Na‐ tional Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) and the special interlocutor for miss‐ ing children and unmarked graves associated with resi‐ dential schools. It offered six recommendations for the Liberal government to sup‐ port the two offices and ex‐ pedite access to information.
The committee also began holding hearings last fall to demand answers from orga‐ nizations that have not re‐ leased records tied to Canada's residential school system.
On Tuesday, Information Commissioner Caroline May‐ nard was asked by Nova
Scotia Sen. Mary Coyle what cultural shifts needed to happen in federal depart‐ ments to facilitate record re‐ leases.
"We need good govern‐ ment leaders that believe in open government and pro‐ vide guidance and clear ob‐ jectives within their depart‐ ment," Maynard told the committee.
"It comes from the top. If the leaders are believing in openness and transparency, more proactive disclosure done on their website, we shouldn't need to have ac‐ cess to information [re‐ quests]. Access to informa‐ tion requests should be the last resort for obtaining infor‐ mation."
She noted the access to information legislation does‐ n't have a public interest override.
"The justice minister, or the minister of Crown-Indige‐ nous Relations, they've promised to be more open in respect to information. We're still struggling, I think, in that area," she said.
"Even though there's a [discretionary power] in that act, I can tell you that it's never been used."
Sask. eHealth addresses committee
Lorri Thacyk, vice-presi‐ dent, communications and public relations with eHealth Saskatchewan, told the com‐ mittee that following a re‐ quest from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2014 for residential school death records, Vital Statistics found that only records older than 70 years could be dis‐ closed under the legislation.
She said six staff spent eight months manually re‐ viewing 225,000 death records between 1898 and 1943. They provided the TRC with death records for all 19,000 children who died in Saskatchewan in that time period. She said the records did not specify children who died at residential schools.
Thacyk said the legislation would allow release of records less than 70 years old only to people like a spouse, parent or adult child. When Coyle asked if records could be released to a First Nation, Thacyk said she would have to check with someone with more legal ex‐ pertise.
She noted Saskatchewan's vital statistics act was amended in 2016 to provide the health minister with dis‐ cretionary power to disclose records under unique cir‐ cumstances. She said that could allow them to release death records to the NCTR that are less than 70 years old, if they had a way to nar‐ row the request, such as lists of names or dates.
Francis said the commit‐ tee will take all the testimony being heard into considera‐ tion and issue a report with recommendations in the coming months.