Archived - 2020 to 2021 Annual Report on the Access to Information Act

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ISSN: 2818-8136

On this page

• 1) Introduction
• 2) How requests were processed under the act
• 3) Complaints and investigations
• 4) Court cases
• Appendix A: Statistical reports
  • Statistical report on the Access to Information Act
  • Supplemental statistical report on the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act
• Appendix B: Delegation Order

1) Introduction

The Access to Information Act (hereafter referred to as the act) gives Canadian citizens as well as people and corporations present in Canada, the right to access records under the control of federal government institutions with limited and specific exceptions. The act is intended to complement existing procedures for access to government information and not to limit, in any way, information that is normally available to the public.

Section 94 of the act requires the heads of federal government institutions to submit a report to Parliament on their institution's administration of the act for each fiscal year. This report, along with all Access to Information annual reports, is tabled in Parliament in accordance with section 94 of the act and describes how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) administered the act for fiscal year 2020 to 2021.

The CFIA is mandated to safeguard Canada's food supply and the plants and animals upon which safe and high-quality food depends. As part of its commitment to openness and transparency, the CFIA recognizes the right to access information in government records and is making every reasonable effort to help anyone making an access to information request.

About the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is one of Canada's largest science-based, regulatory agencies. The CFIA is led by its President, who reports to the Minister of Health, and is made up of approximately 6,862 employees working across Canada's 5 operational regions: Atlantic, Quebec, the National Capital Region, Ontario and the West. CFIA employees are dedicated to safeguarding food safety, animal and plant health to enhance Canada's environment, economy, and the health and well-being of all Canadians.

The CFIA develops program requirements and delivers inspection and other services to:

• prevent and manage food safety risks
• protect plant resources from pests, diseases and invasive species
• prevent and manage animal and zoonotic diseases
• contribute to consumer protection
• contribute to market access for Canada's food, plants, animals and their products

CFIA bases its activities on science, effective risk management, commitment to service and efficiency, and collaboration with domestic and international organizations that share its objectives.

The CFIA is responsible for administering and enforcing 11 federal statutes and 23 regulations that govern the safety and labelling of food sold in Canada and support a sustainable plant and animal resource base.

The CFIA shares many areas of responsibility with other federal departments and agencies, provincial, territorial and municipal authorities, and other stakeholders. Within this complex operating environment, the CFIA works with its partners to implement food safety measures, manage food, animal and plant risks and emergencies, and promote the development of food safety and disease control systems to maintain the safety of Canada's high-quality agriculture, agri-food, aquaculture and fishery products.

The CFIA's activities include:

• verifying the compliance of imported products
• registering and inspecting establishments
• testing food, animals and plants, and their related products
• approving the use of many agricultural inputs

The CFIA also provides scientific advice, develops new technologies, provides testing services, and conducts regulatory research. Its responsibilities and strategic outcomes are illustrated in the Departmental Results Framework, which reflects how the CFIA allocates and manages its resources to achieve the corresponding expected results.

Administration of the act

Administration of the act is the primary responsibility of the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Office, which is part of the Communications and Public Affairs Branch. The ATIP Office processes all requests for information and coordinates all activities related to the act, along with associated regulations, directives and guidelines.

Resources

The ATIP Office is headed by a Director who reports to the Executive Director, Communications Services and Strategic Planning. During the reporting period there were 13.037 full-time, part-time and student equivalents and 0.254 persons (consultants) dedicated to the ATIP Office. In addition to the ATIP Office resources, there are also dedicated ATIP advisor positions in the core branches who report on branch-related ATIP issues and activities. These branch advisors work with the ATIP Office to ensure an efficient and effective process to respond to applicants in a timely manner.

An estimated $945K in salary costs and $75K in operating costs were incurred by the ATIP Office to administer the Access to Information Act for the reporting period. These costs do not include resources within each branch (such as the ATIP advisors), nor any other expenditures incurred by the branches and program areas to meet the requirements of the act.

Staff training and awareness

The ATIP office provided 1 training session to 18 employees in the National Capital Region during fiscal year 2020 to 2021. The purpose of this training session was to increase awareness of the act, clarify requirements under the act, and highlight processes that facilitate the CFIA in meeting its obligations.

In addition to the training delivered by the ATIP office, branch ATIP advisors provided awareness sessions within their respective branches. The work of the branch ATIP advisors was complemented and facilitated through weekly touch base meetings with ATIP management and monthly meetings where operational issues – including training and awareness – were discussed and plans were formulated for resolution.

Policies, guidelines and procedures

The CFIA continuously works on process improvements in order to provide greater oversight and accountability for ATIP activities. The activities related to ATIP are reviewed quarterly and updates regarding request volumes and performance are provided to the offices of both the Ministers of Health and Agriculture and Agri-food, CFIA's senior management cadre and key internal partners.

The CFIA participated in a pilot to offer online request services in January 2014 in response to the Government of Canada's commitment to "Open Government". It enables Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada or individuals or corporations currently present in Canada to submit access to information requests online for information held by the CFIA. Utilization by Canadians of online request services continues to increase. For the period spanning April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 the CFIA received 193 access requests through this system (up from 160 requests the previous year).

The latter portion of the reporting period found Canada in the midst of responding to a world-wide pandemic. With the implementation of sweeping measures to control and prevent the further spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in mid-March 2020, the CFIA's ATIP Office shifted the way it carried out its work to embrace a more virtual format, leveraging the work-from-home protocols developed as part of its 2019 to 2020 digital standard operating procedures initiative.

The closure of CFIA offices in various locations – including the ATIP office – magnified existing technological and process limitations, making record retrievals to respond to new access to information requests impossible. For this reason, the ATIP Office implemented a temporary moratorium on the retrieval of records from mid-March to mid-June 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic situation evolved, so too did business practices. Records retrieval was gradually re-instated in June 2020 and over the summer months. During this time, the ATIP Office maintained open communication with requesters to inform them of the situation and keep them apprised regarding the status of their requests.

During this same timeframe, the ATIP Office focused efforts on clearing its ongoing case load, closing some particularly large volume requests, including one consisting of over 50,000 pages.

2) How requests were processed under the act

The CFIA received 231 new requests under the act between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021. There were 54 outstanding requests from the previous year, bringing the total to 285 requests. Of the 285 requests, 216 were processed during the reporting period and 69 were carried forward to fiscal year 2021 to 2022. It is also important to note that of the 216 requests completed, 12 exceeded 1,000 pages and included 1 request over 18,000 and 2 over 52,000 pages.

For requests submitted pursuant to the act, the ATIP Office reviewed a total of 115,187 pages during the reporting period of which 89,846 were released. This corresponds to a 18% decrease in the number of pages reviewed from last reporting period.

Throughout the reporting period, the ATIP Office maintained a high service standard with 88% of the requests closed on time.

Decreases in the numbers of requests received, pages reviewed and pages released are primarily attributed to the pandemic. The initial 4 months of the pandemic (that is, March, 2020 to June, 2020) were marked by a decrease in the number of requests received. Further, the aforementioned 4 month moratorium in the retrieval of records for requests received between mid-March and mid-June, 2020 and technological challenges with delivering ATI services remotely slowed the ATIP Office's progress in processing requests.

The following represents a breakdown of the sources of requests received during the fiscal year:

• 111 requests from business (48%)
• 20 requests from media (9%)
• 26 requests from organizations (11%)
• 50 requests from the public (22%)
• 9 requests from academia (4%)
• 15 declined to self-identify (6%)

Consultations

During the reporting period, the CFIA received 63 consultations from other government institutions concerning the release of CFIA records. This represents a decrease of 36 consultation requests (36%) over last year, in which 99 consultations were received. The decrease is largely due to the pandemic which temporarily closed, or greatly restricted, operations in many government institutions. The CFIA completed 63 consultations that resulted in the review of 1,645 pages.

Completion times and extensions

The 216 completed requests in 2020 to 2021 were processed within the following timeframes:

• 117 within 30 days or less (54%)
• 19 within 31 to 60 days (9%)
• 54 within 61 to 120 days (25%)
• 26 over 121 days (12%)

The CFIA was able to close 54% of requests within the first 30 days; this is slightly higher than last reporting period where 52% were closed within the first 30 days.

In 104 instances, the CFIA found it necessary to extend the original time limit of 30 calendar days as prescribed in the act. This constitutes 48% of the requests, in comparison to 48% for the last reporting period. Of these extensions, 62 were required for third-party consultations pursuant to section 27 of the act, 16 for interference with operations and another 26 for consultations with federal or provincial authorities. The CFIA monitors performance through quarterly reports to senior CFIA officials.

Disposition of completed requests

There were 216 requests completed in 2020 to 2021. The disposition of the requests is as follows:

• 16 were fully disclosed (7%)
• 118 were partially disclosed (55%)
• 2 were fully exempted (1%)
• 65 where no records existed (30%)
• none (0) were transferred out (0%)
• 15 were abandoned by the applicants (7%)

Exemptions and exclusions

The CFIA invoked exemptions pursuant to the act a total of 385 times. The exemptions were invoked as follows:

• 10 instances for records dealing with information obtained in confidence (s. 13)
• 2 for records concerning federal-provincial affairs (s. 14)
• 11 for records deemed injurious to the conduct of international affairs (s. 15)
• 21 for records concerning law enforcement and investigations (s. 16)
• 1 for safety of individuals (s. 17)
• 4 for economic interests of Canada (s. 18)
• 109 for records containing personal information (s. 19)
• 145 for records containing third-party business information (s. 20)
• 73 for records relating to the internal decision-making processes of government (s. 21)
• 1 for records relating to testing procedures, tests and/or audits (s. 22)
• 8 for records containing solicitor-client privilege (s. 23)
• none (0) for statutory prohibition against disclosure (s. 24)

The following table outlines the use of exemptions invoked by CFIA over the last 5 fiscal years. It shows the total number of exemptions and highlights the sections used most frequently by CFIA.

No exclusions were invoked during the reporting period for Confidences of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada or for published material.

Fees

During the reporting period, $1,125 was collected in fees under the act which were all for application fees. The CFIA waived $30 in application fees in 2020 to 2021.

3) Complaints and investigations

The CFIA received 8 complaints from the Office of the Information Commissioner in 2020 to 2021. This represents an increase of 3 complaints over the previous reporting period, in which 5 complaints were received. The reasons cited for the new complaints are as follows:

• 3 concerned the exemption of information
• 2 concerned a delay
• 2 concerned an improper collection of records
• 1 concerned the general refusal of information (that is, requester felt that they did not receive all of the requested records)

Between April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, 4 complaints were resolved, including complaints carried forward from previous years. Of the 4 complaints closed, 1 was discontinued, 2 were resolved and 1 was resolved as not well founded.

4) Court cases

1 new application was filed with the Federal Court of Canada and 1 court case was closed during the reporting period. The new application was filed pursuant to section 44 of the act. Section 44 allows a third party, to whom the head of a government institution must give notice regarding the disclosure of a record, to apply to the Court for a review of the matter.

Appendix A: Statistical reports

Statistical report on the Access to Information Act

Name of institution: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Reporting period: April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021

Section 1 – Requests under the Access to Information Act

1.1 Number of requests

1.2 Sources of requests

1.3 Informal requests

Note: All requests previously recorded as "treated informally" will now be accounted for in this section only.

Section 2 – Decline to act vexatious, made in bad faith or abuse of right requests

Section 3 – Requests closed during the reporting period

3.1 Disposition and completion time

3.2 Exemptions

Section	Number of requests
13(1)(a)	5
13(1)(b)	2
13(1)(c)	2
13(1)(d)	1
13(1)(e)	0
14	1
14(a)	1
14(b)	0
15(1)	11
15(1) – I.A.Table Note 1	0
15(1) – Def.Table Note 2	0
15(1) – S.A.Table Note 3	0
16(1)(a)(i)	0
16(1)(a)(ii)	0
16(1)(a)(iii)	0
16(1)(b)	0
16(1)(c)	0
16(1)(d)	0
16(2)	1
16(2)(a)	0
16(2)(b)	0
16(2)(c)	19
16(3)	0
16.1(1)(a)	0
16.1(1)(b)	0
16.1(1)(c)	0
16.1(1)(d)	0
16.2(1)	0
16.3	0
16.31	0
16.4(1)(a)	0
16.4(1)(b)	0
16.5	0
16.6	0
17	1
18(a)	1
18(b)	0
18(c)	2
18(d)	1
18.1(1)(a)	0
18.1(1)(b)	0
18.1(1)(c)	0
18.1(1)(d)	0
19(1)	109
20(1)(a)	13
20(1)(b)	54
20(1)(b.1)	0
20(1)(c)	52
20(1)(d)	26
20.1	0
20.2	0
20.4	0
21(1)(a)	28
21(1)(b)	26
21(1)(c)	17
21(1)(d)	2
22	1
22.1(1)	0
23	8
23.1	0
24(1)	0
26	0

3.3 Exclusions

3.4 Format of information released

3.5 Complexity

3.5.1 Relevant pages processed and disclosed

3.5.2 Relevant pages processed and disclosed by size of requests

3.5.3 Other complexities

3.6 Closed requests

3.6.1 Number of requests closed within legislated timelines

3.7 Deemed refusals

3.7.1 Reasons for not meeting legislated deadline

3.7.2 Requests closed beyond legislated timelines (including any extension taken)

3.8 Requests for translation

Section 4 – Extensions

4.1 Reasons for extensions and disposition of requests

4.2 Length of extensions

Section 5 – Fees

Section 6 – Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and organizations

6.2 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions

6.3 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other organizations

Section 7 – Completion time of consultations on Cabinet confidences

7.1 Requests with Legal Services

7.2 Requests with Privy Council Office

Section 8 – Complaints and investigations

Section 9 – Court action

9.1 Court actions on complaints received before June 21, 2019 and on-going

9.2 Court actions on complaints received after June 21, 2019

Section 10 – Resources related to the Access to Information Act

10.1 Costs

10.2 Human Resources

Supplemental statistical report on the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act

Name of institution: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Reporting period: April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021

Section 1 – Capacity to receive requests

Section 2 – Capacity to process records

2.1 Number of weeks to process paper records in different classification levels

2.2 Number of weeks to process electronic records in different classification levels

Appendix B: Delegation Order

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act Delegation Orders

The President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency pursuant to section 95 of the Access to Information Act and section 73 of 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, duties and functions of the President as the head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, under the provisions of the act and related regulations set out in the schedule opposite each position. This designation replaces all previous delegation orders.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Delegation Schedule

Original signed by:

Dr. Siddika Mithani, Ph.D.
President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Ottawa, Canada
May 10, 2021