2020-2021 Annual report on the Access to Information Act

​​​​​Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
1. ​ Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
2. Communications and Access to Information Directorate
3. Delegation of authority
4. 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
5. Informal Access to Information requests
6. Consultation requests
7. Complaints and investigations
8. Monitoring activities
9. Education and training activities
10. Policies, guidelines and procedures
11. Reading rooms
12. Appendix A: Delegation orders
13. Appendix B: Statistical report on the Access to Information Act
14. Appendix C: 2020-2021 Supplemental statistical Access to Information and Privacy statistical f​orm

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 2020–2021 reporting period. It is intended for use by the general public, members of Parliament, and IRB personnel.

2. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

I. The Immigration and Refugee Board

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.

II. Communications and Access to Information Directorate

The Communications and Access to Information 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 Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Unit, which is within the Communications and Access to Information Directorate, is part of the Strategic Directions and Corporate Affairs Branch and is staffed by a manager/coordinator, a supervisor, six ATIP officers and two clerks.

Although section 96 of the Access to Information Act allows institutions reporting to the same Minister to enter into agreements with each other for the purpose of sharing ATIP resources and capacity, the IRB did not have any such service agreement for the reporting period.

3. 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 of the Strategic Directions and Corporate Affairs Branch, , Director of the Communications and Access to Information Directorate and the ATIP Manager/Coordinator.

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

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

I. Requests Received:

The IRB received 160 formal Access to Information requests in 2020–21, the majority of which were submitted by the business sector. This represents a 43 percent decrease in volume from fiscal year 2019–20, during which 229 formal requests were submitted. An additional 34 requests were also carried forward from the previous reporting period.

II. Disposition of requests completed:

A total of 153 formal requests were completed during the 2020–21 reporting period. The completed requests were finalized in the following manner:

Of the 82,820 pages reviewed in response to these requests, 60,410 were released. To compare, approximately 41,000 less pages were reviewed and 49,500 less pages were released in 2020–21 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 15 requests were transferred to other government institutions. An additional 22 requests could not be processed as no relevant records existed under the control of the IRB. Finally, 5 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 2020–21, 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 2020–21 reporting period, only one 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 153 requests completed in 2020–21. Of those requests, 74.5 percent were completed on time.

It should be noted that, at the beginning of the pandemic, the IRB halted all in-person functions in order to protect the health and safety of staff. The impact of that stoppage made it impossible to meet the legal deadline in a total of 31 requests due to the inability to access paper-based records while employees were working from home. If those delayed files were discounted, t​he processing time for applications would have been in the order of 94.7 percent.

• 90 requests in 30 days or less (59%);
• 6 requests in 31 to 60 days (4%);
• 18 requests in 61 to 120 days (12%);
• 12 requests in 121 to 180 days (8%); and
• 27 requests in 181 days or more (17%).

VI. Extensions:

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

During the 2020–21 reporting period, a total of 29 extensions were taken by the IRB. In 25 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 4 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 2020–21, access to the records was given in whole or in part in 110 cases. Copies of the requested material were provided in 21 of those cases, while in the other 89 cases, the records were provided electronically.

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 with 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: $780
• 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 Unit for the administration of the Act is estimated to be $149,306 in salaries. The human resources used for this reporting period are estimated at two FTEs.

X. COVID-19

Because teleworking was a common practice in the ATIP Unit before the pandemic, the exceptional measures to curb COVID-19 implemented by the Government of Canada had a minimal impact on the IRB’s ability to receive requests as set out in the Access to Information Act. Challenges with accessing paper-based records while employees were working from home, however, did result in delays in processing times. In the early days of the pandemic, this issue resulted in delays for 31 requests. Administrative measures have since been taken to address this issue.

5. Informal Access to Information requests

In 2020–21, the IRB processed 205 informal access requests. This represents a 23 percent decrease in volume from the previous reporting period, during which 267 requests were processed. A total of 159,041 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 Unit 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.

6. Consultation Requests

The IRB responded to 15 consultation requests made by other government institutions or organizations in 2020–21. A total of 168 pages were reviewed in response to these consultations, and the majority of pages were recommended for release to the applicant.

7. Complaints and Investigations

In fiscal year 2020–21, five new complaints against the IRB were registered with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. Four complaints, including two that were received in previous fiscal years (2017 to 2019), were processed then closed. These five complaints represent 3.3% of all requests received and completed during the same period. Four complaints were related to exemptions and the fourth one was related to the treatment of the request (failed to conduct reasonable research for records). A total of three complaints were 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 2020–21.

8. Monitoring Activities

The manager, in cooperation with the supervisor and 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.

9. Education and Training Activities

No formal session was delivered to IRB employees. However, individual and informal training was offered when needed. In addition, the ATIP team is currently working on updating its general ATIP training which will have a portion dealing with privacy breaches.

10. Policies, Guidelines and Procedures

The IRB implemented the Privacy Implementation Notice 2020-03: Protecting privacy when releasing information about a small number of individuals during the 2020–21 reporting period, to prevent inadvertent identification of individuals from small data sets in highly sensitive contexts (e.g. refugee claims).

11. Reading Rooms

Individuals who wish to examine records released under the Act can usually contact the Communications and Access to Information Directorate to make arrangements to view release packages at the IRB Headquarters in Ottawa or at one of its regional offices. However, and due to the exceptional measures to curb COVID-19 implemented by the Government of Canada, it has not been possible to do so in 2020-21.

Appendix A - Delegation Orders (Access to Information Act)

The Chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, pursuant to section 73(1) of the Privacy Act, hereby designates the persons holding the positions set out in the schedule below, or the persons occupying on an acting basis those positions, to exercise the powers, duties and functions of the Chairperson as the head of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, under the provisions of the Act and related regulations set out in the Schedule opposite each position. This designation replaces all previous delegation orders.

Dated, at the City of Ottawa, this 12th day of January 2021.

Richard Wex, Chairperson

Appendix B - Statistical Report on the Access to Information Act

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

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 cosed within legislated timelines

3.7 Deemed refusals

3.7.1 Reasons for not meeting legislated timelines

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 institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and Organizations

6.2 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received fro 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

​Appendix C - Supplemental Access to Information and Privacy Statistical Form

Section 1: Capacity to receive requests

Section 2: Capacity to process records

2.1 Number of weeks the IRB was able to process paper records in different classification levels:

2.2. Number of weeks the IRB was able to process electronic records in different classification levels:​