Commentary: Drawing Access Together — Lessons Learned

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Welcome to Access and Privacy Online, the podcast where we delve into the latest
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issues, challenges, and advancements in access to information and privacy rights.
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Today we are looking beyond the usual question of how quickly government answers
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a Freedom of Information request.
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FIPA's Final Access Assessments Report, Drawing Access Together,
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asks whether public bodies can find the right records, apply the law correctly,
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and preserve the information needed for Accountable Government.
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I'm Patrick Farnsworth. Joining me are report author Spencer Eisen,
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FIPA Executive Director Jason Wojwada, and FIPA President Mike Larson. Let's dive in.
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Well, I'm glad we're all here together. It's been a while. Spencer,
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first, just want to really congratulate you for such a huge project.
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You completed it. You said it was something almost like four years in the making.
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So congratulations, truly. You pulled it off.
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Thank you very much. It was many years of my life that went into it.
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I'm very happy I went into it. And I've made a lot of lovely friends along the
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way and some fantastic mentors as well that got it to this point.
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So very much a team effort, even though I was the lead researcher on it.
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Yeah, it's about the journey, not the destination. But you are at the destination,
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thankfully, seemingly.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, Spencer, thanks for coming back on. We have talked about this
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report over the past couple of years or something since we started this podcast,
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it seems like. So it's really great that we're at this point in it.
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So, Spencer, the first question we're going to start us off with is,
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you know, for the listeners who have never filed a Freedom of Information request
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or maybe have never needed to,
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what was FIBA trying to understand through access assessments?
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And why did you decide to use FOI to study FOI?
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Right. Well, I think the original idea to use FOI, to study FOI, came from Jason.
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I had spent a summer with FIPA in 2022 after I graduated high school.
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Just as a research assistant, I'm supporting with a few projects,
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largely a news monitoring project.
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But I'd been a journalist effectively for two years at that point,
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so I was familiar with FOI.
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I had cared about it. I had followed the introduction of Bill 22 in 2021 that
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introduced a $10 fee for general freedom of information requests in BC.
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So I was familiar with the politics of FOI.
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And I think to sum up our original conversations between Jason and I in late 2022.
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Both of us were not satisfied with the way that we popularly understood FOI through metrics alone.
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Timeliness was not the only thing that we cared about.
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As applicants, as advocates, there was essentially more to the FOI story than
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just how long it was taking for a request to be processed or how many pages were involved.
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In a particular request, knowing this is important,
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but it's not going to get us across the finish line to understand what's bad
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about a $10 fee, what that's going to do to the applicant experience,
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whether or not we should reasonably expect it to make,
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FOI faster, as the government told us five years ago now.
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So this project was born out of a mutual desire between Jason and myself to
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figure out a different way of understanding how freedom of information was administered
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and how we could actually understand that.
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We spent a year poking around trying to figure out what kinds of documents exist.
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This was, I think, largely to my benefit as someone who had never worked in
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a large organization before.
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FIPA, I mean, my newspaper that I work at still has a lot of volunteers,
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about 100, but I've never worked in something the size of the BC Public Service before.
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So the variety of literature that you might encounter there was entirely unknown to me.
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And pretty much the best insight I had into it was a British television show
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called Yes, Minister from the 80s, which is both out of consonants and out of date for what we do.
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So, but after that, then I drilled down and had become, through my schooling
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at UBC, a real student of science technology studies, developed a real interest in documentation.
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I think the book I would credit to that, it's somewhere on my desk, actually.
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The first book that got me really thinking about documents, because this whole
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study is Information in Society by Michael Buckland. It's part of the MIT Essential Knowledge Series.
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I re-read it again recently for another reason and I forgot just how much of
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the study was actually driven by a desire to think about what is significant
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about a document not only as,
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an object that we can treat as a unit of data like I was doing for my study but also,
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as something that's politically significant like ultimately the purpose of freedom
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of information is to transfer a document from one person to another and we hope
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that that exchange of information is going to result in something democratically desirable.
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So that's essentially where the study came from, is we didn't think that numbers
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alone could tell us enough.
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So we wanted to look under the hood and figure out how freedom of information
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actually works. And this study is what we ended up with.
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Yeah, just to follow up on that, what can we understand about the internal policies,
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the procedures, the training materials,
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I mean, what can they tell us about how an access system works that annual statistics cannot?
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Right. I mean, in this sense, this is the most agonizing question of my methodological journey.
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This isn't really the type of research that I realized early on.
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You're going to find a lot of people doing. You'll find a lot of historians,
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I realized very late in the game, who obviously exclusively know the past through documents.
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Even then, they're working with a fair amount of dialogical texts.
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You've got correspondence, you've got letters.
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People are being very candid about differences of opinion.
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But working with monological texts, texts that aren't really speaking to a particular
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person, like a manual, like a policy, like a guideline.
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Those are not subject to the same degree of systematic, interpretive,
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or scientific research that most documentation is.
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So that was the first challenge, is actually finding a way to actually answer
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that question, is what can we tell about a document?
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I wasn't satisfied by more discursive approaches that would argue these documents
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are a reflection of priorities, or they can reveal something,
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deep down about the essence of the public service. There is a large school of research about that.
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I didn't think it worked for this because of my training, and technically the
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program is called informatics, but what I didn't want to do is to make a bunch
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of claims as a new researcher.
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With a kind of novel method that we're perhaps reading into things too much.
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And it was very, like, I remember going, reading a lot of early studies and
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articles and a few methods textbooks that would encourage researchers to look for absences.
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And I got kind of disheartened by that at a certain point, because on one hand,
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it was very easy to be like, okay, yes, I can see what's absent.
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And that's very easy when you're just reading that book to kind of intuitively,
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say to yourself, oh, yeah, okay, I look for things that are present and are absent.
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The things that are absent indicate what's a priority and what's not easy.
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Then you look at the document and you say to yourself, I have no idea what I'm looking at.
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I'm looking at deeply decontextualized bureaucratic literature in the form of,
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potentially thousands of pages in one PDF.
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I have no idea who wrote this. I have no idea when it was written,
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whom it was for, what the author wasn't able to do.
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Increasingly, as I became a producer of this kind of document myself for my
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other job, I started to have a
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lot more empathy for the people who were producing similar kinds of texts.
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Ultimately, what I wanted to, I settled on.
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For what these documents can tell us is they can tell us about where the frame
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of reference exists for the mission of any sort of public service unit.
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The degree to which something is elaborated on or is completely discarded can
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indicate to us whether that's on the periphery or at the center of how an organization kind of imagines.
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Its own functions. So, for example, a lot of the absences that we saw when it
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came to texts about freedom of information that I'm most interested in were
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about how to actually pursue freedom.
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Redaction or severance? How do you actually decide this is policy advice?
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This is injurious to a public body's financial interest?
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Those questions are not easy to answer.
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For us, and when I say us, I mean the general public, they're the essence of
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what we care about for freedom of information.
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Freedom of information never makes the news because there's some sort of new
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procedural update with who starts redacting the documents, and whether that's
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changed from the records management officer and,
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now it's going to be this new rule.
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Delegation of authority charts never make the news. What does is whether something
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was withheld or not or disclosed or not.
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That's the essence of what we care about. But as we looked closer to the actual,
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everyday practice of severing documents, we found that.
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The essence, the things that we care about, the mission, the purpose of freedom
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of information increasingly got displaced by a focus on a lot of assembly line rhetoric.
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So I think ultimately what the documents told us is that they weren't reflections
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or reproductions of ideas. They didn't reveal anything deep down.
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They were the material manifestation of those ideas.
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There's no metaphor to kind of connect the idea and the practice.
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It's simply the idea and the practice are one, and the document is the reality
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that we were looking at, which was caveated with a massive, massive disclaimer
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methodologically for us, which is we don't want to actually say,
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that we can tell everything about practice, because to do that,
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we would have had to engage in participant observation. We would have had to
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speak with FOI coordinators. We would have had to do a more holistic ethnography.
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But we did not, at the same time, want to treat these documents as something
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where we could peer in too closely as outsiders and accidentally read way too
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far without being grounded by the realities of everyday life and the public service.
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Okay. Yeah, you know, I mean, you've already kind of alluded to this,
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or we've said it in different ways, but I mean, this is a massive project.
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You examined, I don't know if you said this already, but you examined 56 public
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bodies and more than 36,000 pages of records.
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Before we get into those details, though, I mean...
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I mean, you alluded to this, but if you could just say, you know,
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what was the single most important finding? If you could think of one thing
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that you want the public and decision makers to understand about this work.
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Ooh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I spent most of my early days talking about early days, like I'm 70, I'm 22.
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I spent most of my early time reading literature updating Jason Weakley and
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Mike on what I learned about the sociology of discretion and what I learned about,
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records management on a very technical level.
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I had a lot of very, very exciting conversations about what is and is not any
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electronic documents and records management system, whether metadata application
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profiles the right way to go about securing metadata capture.
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But that stuff is really fascinating. But I think what to this day, like really,
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and from the feedback I've gotten from folks that have read the report,
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it's very late one night when I was writing the final draft,
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there was an issue that I had been encountering for years,
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something I was seeing that I had no way to describe.
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And it just, it literally dawned at me in about four in the morning,
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the day that I was, the report was due.
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There was a document I was looking at from a ministry, I can't remember which ministry.
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And it said, the purpose of this document is to comply with established standards.
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It's 4 a.m. I'm mostly made of iced chai at this point, and that's how I'm getting
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through this. And I just look at it, and I remember thinking,
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oh my god, this is bullshit.
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And not necessarily in the ordinary sense, but in the sense of,
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there's a philosopher named Harry Frankfort, who wrote On Bullshit in 1986.
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In the early 2000s, it became a small book.
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We published in that essay with Princeton University Press and was all about,
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the philosophical or specifically ethical communicative implications of what it means to bullshit.
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His definition of it was, it's communication that has no fidelity to reality.
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You're completely disinterested in truth. It's different from lying because
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someone who lies, according to Frankfurt, or at least has to care about the
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value of truth in order to actually be successful with their utterance.
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Bullshitters don't actually rely on that. It's the act of excreting communication
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with no interest in whether or not it has any relationship to reality.
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For me, when I looked at that document.
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It radiated analogies to all of these other instances where I had seen a word
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in a document alleged that another document exists,
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And I would know it doesn't. So specifically, in this case,
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I was thinking, okay, for there to be established standards,
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that very, very heavily implies that such standards exist in textual form. Standard is the most.
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Interesting word to use for this phenomenon to exist, because it literally needs
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to be able to standardize something across people.
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The way you do that in Western bureaucracies is to put it in an inscription,
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a document, and be able to circulate that among people.
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So for a document to say, oh, yeah, we're complying with standards,
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that to most readers, I think a charitable reading, one that's actually really
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interested in taking this text seriously, would say, oh, okay,
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I assume there's a standard out there I can go look at if I'm curious.
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But, you know, being in this for years and looking at that public body's total
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release package that they provided us, there were no established standards.
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And then I thought to myself, okay, this is not only is this sociologically
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significant or philosophically significant following Frankfurt,
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but there's something politically undesirable about what I'm seeing.
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It was very very it reminded me almost of the way my principal talked to me
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as a high school student journalist uh uh.
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And and the vancouver school board used to and their their officials when i
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was 17 and 18 is there was this sort of cling to authority that
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it it wasn't actually necessary in this scenario no one would have faulted the
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public body for not having established standards um uh,
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to the same degree that we would fault them for,
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indicating that such a standard exists and,
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And then kind of creating the illusion of authority with having no intention
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of actually following through on it.
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That whole document did something, I think, rather nefarious,
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which is to allege that a document exists and to attempt to use the idea of
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standardization, to attempt to use the idea of a documentary authority,
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and to use that in a way that I think is kind of manipulative.
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Even though it's on a very small scale and I don't think this is by any means.
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This is not me trying to be alarmist about it but I think that this propensity to engage in bullshit,
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of this variety and I don't have a name for it yet I think I called it infelicitous
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intertextuality or something like that but I think a linguist would not be okay
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with that usage on either of those words,
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but I'll come up with a different name for it But I think the idea that you're
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willing to commit to documentation, something that you don't really believe
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in, is rather dangerous for anyone who's exercising authority on the public's behalf.
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That is what I think is most concerning about that, what I saw.
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For years, Jason and I had been talking about this, and I finally stumbled upon
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a name at that point in time.
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But I think that's what stands out to me, is that a lot of the documentation
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that I was really trying to interpret charitably, I was not looking for.
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Gotcha moments where I could point out and calculate differences between the
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ideal and the reality. I was just simply trying to step into the worldviews
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that were as honestly as I could read them.
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And that was what I came away with thinking, is that this isn't a document that
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I can trust, which is really an affront, actually, to the idea that was in this
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book about information and society is like,
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The whole reason we have documents is, yes, collapsing space and time is important,
00:18:24.870 --> 00:18:29.891
but we also need to be able to trust what's in that document between people.
00:18:30.541 --> 00:18:34.610
And to see the power of that technology and documentation used that way,
00:18:36.253 --> 00:18:38.726
I think about it every day. I think about it every day.
00:18:39.550 --> 00:18:41.355
So that's, I think, what stands out to me.
00:18:42.238 --> 00:18:48.014
So one of the report's clearest message is that a public body can't disclose what it cannot find.
00:18:48.443 --> 00:18:51.520
So what did the research reveal about how records are created,
00:18:51.520 --> 00:18:54.760
organized, searched for, and retrieved as part of all of this, right?
00:18:54.760 --> 00:18:58.810
We've identified that a lot of these documents don't exist, and they may be
00:18:58.810 --> 00:18:59.990
bullshitting about this stuff.
00:18:59.990 --> 00:19:03.902
But what did the research reveal when you were looking at this stuff?
00:19:04.738 --> 00:19:08.980
Yeah, like on specifically records management, I mean,
00:19:11.040 --> 00:19:15.740
the archival literature that I encountered split the kind of imagined users
00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:20.650
for records into two groups primary and secondary users primary users were the
00:19:20.650 --> 00:19:23.596
creators those who were trying to uh,
00:19:24.820 --> 00:19:30.200
create evidence of action in a record secondary users are like most foy applicants
00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:34.602
people who are are detached from the original uh um,
00:19:35.537 --> 00:19:40.874
environment in which the record was created. So I kind of immediately realized
00:19:40.874 --> 00:19:46.684
that I needed to, in order to understand FOI and understand its relationship
00:19:46.684 --> 00:19:49.084
with the Information Management Act, British Columbia's,
00:19:50.764 --> 00:19:51.913
record keeping statutes,
00:19:52.894 --> 00:20:00.724
I needed to figure out how to genuinely understand records management as a field of practice.
00:20:00.724 --> 00:20:04.664
So I invested a lot of time looking in records management textbooks.
00:20:05.244 --> 00:20:10.224
I attended a lot of our records management conferences. I got a lot of fantastic
00:20:10.224 --> 00:20:12.200
feedback from professional archivists in BC.
00:20:13.224 --> 00:20:19.684
But when I wrote you can't disclose what you can't find, I was trying to call attention to.
00:20:22.384 --> 00:20:28.884
This issue to two audiences. One, the easier audience is archivists themselves
00:20:28.884 --> 00:20:35.182
and records managers who who are fantastic about putting the values of their profession up front.
00:20:35.784 --> 00:20:40.360
Every time I've had a conversation with an archivist, inevitably and very quickly,
00:20:40.783 --> 00:20:44.572
Trust, democracy, truth will always come up.
00:20:45.092 --> 00:20:48.942
And I think what I admire about that profession is their willingness to put
00:20:48.942 --> 00:20:55.452
their ethics at the forefront of what they do. It reminded me of what I love about journalism, too.
00:20:55.585 --> 00:20:59.162
But I think what else I was trying to get at for the FOI audience,
00:20:59.162 --> 00:21:04.912
the FOI crowd, is that we have to care about records management for reasons
00:21:04.912 --> 00:21:08.912
that are not only about freedom of information.
00:21:08.912 --> 00:21:13.302
We have to make sure that a records management system actually serves the folks
00:21:13.302 --> 00:21:14.886
who work in the public service.
00:21:15.492 --> 00:21:19.022
If they're unable to retrieve a record in their everyday context,
00:21:19.022 --> 00:21:24.464
if they spend 10 to 20 percent, it's a number that's often thrown around,
00:21:25.972 --> 00:21:31.422
of their working life looking for things, that are in shared drives that are
00:21:31.422 --> 00:21:33.264
misclassified, that are outdated,
00:21:34.152 --> 00:21:37.072
that too many lines of business system, one line of business system is brand
00:21:37.072 --> 00:21:41.124
new and you can't retrieve anything from it, It's not subject indexed. It has no.
00:21:43.272 --> 00:21:48.382
There's no metadata. That is a problem for the primary users.
00:21:48.382 --> 00:21:52.892
And the primary users are in no way able to fulfill the needs of the secondary
00:21:52.892 --> 00:21:56.842
users, FOI applicants, if their needs aren't met.
00:21:56.842 --> 00:22:01.272
So what I was trying to get at is like records, like if we want to do something about,
00:22:02.092 --> 00:22:05.972
freedom of information, I'm obviously all on board with spending as much time,
00:22:06.672 --> 00:22:10.052
as humanly possible talking about the definition of policy advice,
00:22:10.052 --> 00:22:12.372
how we can know it, and how we can develop,
00:22:13.372 --> 00:22:19.262
ways of knowing to expedite correctly determining whether a record should be disclosed or withheld.
00:22:19.262 --> 00:22:21.432
But retrieval is just important.
00:22:22.012 --> 00:22:24.782
We cannot do any of that until we found the right documents.
00:22:25.137 --> 00:22:26.361
The government of British Columbia.
00:22:27.526 --> 00:22:32.503
Is increasingly describing itself as facing a sea of FOI requests.
00:22:33.346 --> 00:22:36.596
And they love to say complex requests.
00:22:37.266 --> 00:22:43.106
I yearn for definition of that. Recognizing that actually classifying that is extremely difficult.
00:22:43.672 --> 00:22:47.856
The literature on information retrieval has studied this. I had a professor
00:22:47.856 --> 00:22:51.735
who wrote the seminal paper in information search complexity.
00:22:52.060 --> 00:22:57.746
So I'm sympathetic, but also a bit's peeve that we haven't got beyond the complex
00:22:57.746 --> 00:23:00.007
request terminology and we don't have a better idea of it.
00:23:00.257 --> 00:23:04.356
But one way to do that is actually to invest in records management,
00:23:04.356 --> 00:23:09.576
not necessarily, again, because we care about FOI, but we care about improving
00:23:09.576 --> 00:23:13.461
public service efficiency because we care about service delivery.
00:23:14.366 --> 00:23:19.829
The records management radiates benefits to all of those functions.
00:23:20.108 --> 00:23:23.782
That's what I meant by you can't disclose what you can't find.
00:23:24.223 --> 00:23:24.560
Yeah.
00:23:24.891 --> 00:23:28.306
Now, you know, we've been using the language of freedom of information a lot
00:23:28.306 --> 00:23:29.726
as we've been talking about this right now.
00:23:29.964 --> 00:23:33.946
And British, part of the study, though, was quite deliberate about making sure
00:23:33.946 --> 00:23:36.076
that we were also considering the Information Management Act,
00:23:36.076 --> 00:23:41.917
right? Because BC has an Information Management Act and a duty to document for government decisions.
00:23:42.329 --> 00:23:47.326
Yet the report found little evidence that those obligations had reshaped every
00:23:47.326 --> 00:23:50.015
public service record-keeping responsibility.
00:23:50.363 --> 00:23:53.556
Do we have any insight into sort of
00:23:53.556 --> 00:23:58.577
why this gap between the law and its implementation seems so significant?
00:24:00.286 --> 00:24:03.646
I wish we did. Unfortunately, we don't know what happened to duty-to-document,
00:24:03.646 --> 00:24:07.330
largely on account that it wasn't documented, rather ironically.
00:24:07.620 --> 00:24:16.566
We asked, I think, in 2024 or early 2025, I can't remember, for copies of documents
00:24:16.566 --> 00:24:20.626
that we knew or we were led to believe existed.
00:24:20.626 --> 00:24:22.899
It's called duty-to-document readiness assessments.
00:24:23.172 --> 00:24:28.872
They were supposed to be conducted by all ministries in 2018 or 2019.
00:24:29.964 --> 00:24:32.007
We did not receive a single one.
00:24:33.106 --> 00:24:38.046
There was only one or two ministries of the BC Public Service that actually
00:24:38.046 --> 00:24:41.726
had any mention of DDT documents in their own,
00:24:42.366 --> 00:24:45.816
or rather documents in government decisions is the technical term for it as
00:24:45.816 --> 00:24:53.160
it was adopted in British Columbia via an order or a directive under the Information Management Act.
00:24:53.906 --> 00:25:00.626
But that statute, we found no evidence, as you said, that this has informed,
00:25:01.126 --> 00:25:05.586
everyday administrator practice, which is really upsetting because I think,
00:25:07.786 --> 00:25:12.106
as someone who's over the past two years become responsible for an office and
00:25:12.106 --> 00:25:14.458
setting up a shared drive and teaching people how to use it.
00:25:17.006 --> 00:25:21.556
It makes everyone's life infinitely easier when we have records management.
00:25:21.556 --> 00:25:29.522
And I've really devoted myself as a kind of peripheral member of the archival community to,
00:25:30.472 --> 00:25:35.078
amplifying the importance of records managers in organizations,
00:25:36.612 --> 00:25:41.992
much in the same way that I think we shouldn't disrespect accountants for what
00:25:41.992 --> 00:25:46.316
they do to uphold the financial integrity of institutions, private and public.
00:25:47.792 --> 00:25:54.234
I sincerely believe that information professionals are severely undervalued,
00:25:54.490 --> 00:25:56.632
not only in British Columbia and across Canada.
00:25:57.072 --> 00:26:05.052
I think their expertise is deserving of statutory authority to implement interventions
00:26:05.392 --> 00:26:10.127
across public bodies, as well as to audit record-keeping practices.
00:26:10.912 --> 00:26:15.702
I think that what we've seen from a decade of the Information Management Act,
00:26:15.702 --> 00:26:21.892
which largely it's about setting up the digital archives, about creating the
00:26:21.892 --> 00:26:23.525
position of the chief records officer,
00:26:24.252 --> 00:26:29.272
we haven't seen the potential of the chief records officer fulfilled,
00:26:29.692 --> 00:26:34.555
even with its fairly narrowly cast and resource objectives now.
00:26:35.256 --> 00:26:42.657
The annual reports under the chief records officer jurisdiction are extremely trite.
00:26:44.345 --> 00:26:49.305
I was very displeased as someone who's excited about going into government one
00:26:49.305 --> 00:26:55.695
day, and I was 18, 19 years old starting this, that there were copy-pasted provisions year to year.
00:26:57.965 --> 00:27:02.485
Across those documents. They're becoming more like presentations. I think something,
00:27:03.405 --> 00:27:09.195
not innocent happened when those annual reports shifted from a letter to landscape
00:27:09.195 --> 00:27:13.725
orientation, and they became increasingly public relations exercises.
00:27:13.725 --> 00:27:17.035
I don't think that's just a trivial graphic design choice.
00:27:17.035 --> 00:27:21.825
I think that is indicative of an attempt, or not an attempt,
00:27:21.825 --> 00:27:28.235
rather, but a devaluation of being annually accountable for record-keeping to
00:27:28.235 --> 00:27:29.810
the Legislative Assembly.
00:27:30.071 --> 00:27:37.695
So for all of those reasons and all of that, I think that the Information Management
00:27:37.695 --> 00:27:40.555
Act is due for renovation.
00:27:40.555 --> 00:27:45.141
I think British Columbia, you know, this province was an international leader,
00:27:47.345 --> 00:27:51.885
in record keeping in the 1980s and 90s with the Administrative Records Classification
00:27:51.885 --> 00:27:54.371
System and the Operational Records Classification System.
00:27:54.563 --> 00:27:59.065
I understand there's been some work in the Ministry of Citizen Services to transform
00:27:59.065 --> 00:28:02.867
that. I think that it's literally called the Transformation Project or something very similar to that.
00:28:04.585 --> 00:28:10.985
I say we keep going. I say it's time to open up AIMA and really empower archivists
00:28:10.985 --> 00:28:14.665
to be able to lead this across the province. Because, again.
00:28:17.065 --> 00:28:22.918
We can talk about freedom, democracy, whether something should be secret or shouldn't be secret.
00:28:23.684 --> 00:28:27.655
If we cannot find it, like we said in the reports, there is no use having that conversation.
00:28:28.358 --> 00:28:31.761
So who should be responsible for checking whether public bodies are complying?
00:28:31.761 --> 00:28:33.281
Because that's a critical element here.
00:28:33.530 --> 00:28:36.491
We've long been advocating that somebody needs to be responsible.
00:28:36.491 --> 00:28:37.704
Have we got an answer to that yet?
00:28:38.778 --> 00:28:44.661
No, I think that part of my hesitancy to come down with a strong recommendation is my,
00:28:45.881 --> 00:28:49.981
wanting to give that to, honestly, records managers and archivists to be able
00:28:49.981 --> 00:28:54.321
to testify to and give them the freedom to define how their profession wants
00:28:54.321 --> 00:28:56.981
to be empowered. But I do think they need something.
00:28:59.821 --> 00:29:03.552
I think there's a few models that are interesting in Scotland,
00:29:05.421 --> 00:29:07.281
in Australia, at the state level, in New Zealand.
00:29:08.156 --> 00:29:15.301
But I'm not a scholar of comparative archival legislation by any means.
00:29:15.901 --> 00:29:19.991
I think I was more familiar a few years ago, but as I honed in on some other
00:29:19.991 --> 00:29:21.693
things, that fell off my radar a little bit.
00:29:22.608 --> 00:29:28.304
So, what I will say is that we do need someone who's independent of government, though,
00:29:30.308 --> 00:29:35.468
or at least has some guarantee of consistent resourcing, which I don't think
00:29:35.468 --> 00:29:38.132
is what we're seeing with the chief records officer right now.
00:29:40.168 --> 00:29:44.778
I don't think we've collected an audit that was actually conducted under IMA to date.
00:29:45.588 --> 00:29:49.138
There's authorities that are not being used, and I think we need to put some
00:29:49.138 --> 00:29:54.498
money behind that. As to where that goes, I'm not sold on it being the information
00:29:54.498 --> 00:29:55.522
and privacy commissioner.
00:29:56.228 --> 00:30:01.268
We're already seeing a bit of portfolio adjustments for IPCs across the country
00:30:01.268 --> 00:30:04.799
with the introduction of digital safety legislation at the federal level,
00:30:05.648 --> 00:30:09.968
and some questions about the relationship between the new digital safety commissioner
00:30:09.968 --> 00:30:11.933
and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
00:30:13.088 --> 00:30:16.292
This isn't a new form of expertise.
00:30:17.688 --> 00:30:22.078
It's not something we can pack on to the IPC or to the OIPC or to an auditor
00:30:22.078 --> 00:30:24.315
general for that matter and say, go figure it out.
00:30:25.203 --> 00:30:29.468
If we just do that, there's no value. I think we're just wasting money.
00:30:29.468 --> 00:30:36.108
I think that in whatever location, architecturally, that work takes place,
00:30:36.108 --> 00:30:39.692
it needs to be led by archivists and records managers.
00:30:40.808 --> 00:30:45.748
They're the ones who know about this very, very complex field who have centuries
00:30:45.748 --> 00:30:47.978
of tradition associated with it to
00:30:47.978 --> 00:30:52.381
be able to evaluate good and not good record-keeping practices to support.
00:30:54.888 --> 00:30:57.611
The implementation of new technologies into the public service.
00:30:57.808 --> 00:31:00.998
Archivists have a lot of exciting ideas about how to do that.
00:31:00.998 --> 00:31:04.554
They're just simply interested in making life better for those who work there,
00:31:05.348 --> 00:31:08.629
which also happens to benefit everyone who funds that, a citizens.
00:31:09.488 --> 00:31:16.438
So I think I'm... I don't have a really clear view myself of where this work
00:31:16.438 --> 00:31:18.294
should take place, but I certainly know who should do it.
00:31:18.969 --> 00:31:22.579
Well, I was going to say all power to the archivists and record managers, for sure.
00:31:22.719 --> 00:31:23.113
Yeah.
00:31:25.151 --> 00:31:31.842
Yeah. Well, Spencer, you know, you describe severance or redaction as inherently
00:31:31.842 --> 00:31:37.042
legal work, but many of the documents you reviewed describe FOI mainly as the
00:31:37.042 --> 00:31:38.996
movement of a file through a process.
00:31:39.565 --> 00:31:44.244
And so what gets lost when legal reasoning is treated as workflow?
00:31:45.903 --> 00:31:52.762
I think what gets lost is the fact that there's another book on my desk that
00:31:52.762 --> 00:31:53.900
describes this pretty well.
00:31:54.612 --> 00:31:59.989
It's called The Reflective Practitioner, How Professionals Think in Action.
00:32:00.239 --> 00:32:07.982
So the author, Donald Schoen, makes a distinction between technical rationality
00:32:07.982 --> 00:32:09.806
and reflection in action.
00:32:10.432 --> 00:32:16.552
And for him, technical rationality is essentially the underlying idea behind
00:32:16.552 --> 00:32:21.259
what I described as an assembly line way of thinking about FOI.
00:32:21.498 --> 00:32:22.873
It's about problem solving.
00:32:23.186 --> 00:32:28.562
And what gets lost when you only focus on problem solving, when you only focus
00:32:28.562 --> 00:32:32.842
on implementation, and you don't reevaluate constantly the premises that your
00:32:32.842 --> 00:32:36.689
work is taking place, you lose the ability to actually question those premises.
00:32:38.912 --> 00:32:45.992
And name the problem. You forget that part of, again, the essence of freedom
00:32:45.992 --> 00:32:50.677
of information is that decision about whether to withhold or not withhold the documents.
00:32:51.892 --> 00:32:56.462
The essence of freedom of information is not, I'm uploading this to a shared
00:32:56.462 --> 00:33:00.586
portal so the next person can do whatever they're assigned to do with it.
00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:05.652
That's not justiciable when we take it to the OIPC. The essence of freedom of
00:33:05.652 --> 00:33:10.652
information is those decisions, is owning the judgments that we make about that
00:33:10.652 --> 00:33:12.011
and being able to justify them.
00:33:12.318 --> 00:33:16.912
I think what else that gets lost, and I anticipated a question like this would
00:33:16.912 --> 00:33:24.502
come up, and the way I kind of framed what I was interested in is I looked at a lot of OIPC orders.
00:33:24.502 --> 00:33:28.102
And there's a lot that I can't appreciate about what goes into them because I'm not a lawyer.
00:33:28.912 --> 00:33:34.692
But what I did notice is they remind me almost of—.
00:33:36.442 --> 00:33:39.152
In elementary school, when we were being taught the scientific method,
00:33:39.152 --> 00:33:42.022
we were always taught that there needs to be a method portion,
00:33:42.022 --> 00:33:44.704
there needs to be an introduction portion, there's your hypothesis,
00:33:44.925 --> 00:33:49.762
there's discussion, and then a statement about your actual results, or some order like that.
00:33:49.762 --> 00:33:51.612
There's acronyms for the natural
00:33:51.612 --> 00:33:55.432
sciences, like IMRAD, that describe the structure of a scientific paper.
00:33:55.432 --> 00:34:02.092
There's lots and lots of literature about the internal anatomy of scientific
00:34:02.092 --> 00:34:05.792
publications, largely the natural sciences, but I think there's also some work
00:34:05.792 --> 00:34:07.993
about the quantity of social sciences to do this.
00:34:08.196 --> 00:34:12.122
Not work I'm doing, because I'm an interpretive social scientist by this practice,
00:34:12.122 --> 00:34:18.784
but I saw concepts of that idea emerge in OIPC orders, where you've got an introduction,
00:34:19.682 --> 00:34:21.791
a discussion, a statement about the burden of proof.
00:34:23.282 --> 00:34:27.502
Some contextual background factors, then a step-by-step analysis and a recital
00:34:27.502 --> 00:34:28.896
of the different orders.
00:34:29.251 --> 00:34:34.812
All of that work is like an OIPC order is I think just a bit more of a slowed
00:34:34.812 --> 00:34:41.963
down and version of all of the work that we expect an FOI worker to do and if you just imagine,
00:34:43.182 --> 00:34:47.756
the differences in this work not necessarily as like the difference between,
00:34:48.442 --> 00:34:54.342
a lawyer and someone who's using FOI as an entry level job and you don't think
00:34:54.342 --> 00:34:57.102
of it really in those terms like that but you think about just,
00:34:57.712 --> 00:35:02.745
And these are moments in which we're either elaborating or compressing on judgment.
00:35:03.413 --> 00:35:08.148
Then you start to realize, oh, there's a lot that goes into deciding whether
00:35:08.148 --> 00:35:09.595
something needs to be severed or not.
00:35:09.856 --> 00:35:14.999
And I think more than sometimes even the folks who are doing FOI work even realize.
00:35:16.798 --> 00:35:23.242
The OIPC's job is to inspect every aspect of what's in contest when it's brought before them.
00:35:23.974 --> 00:35:28.518
So they got to look back at every decision and judgment, review each of the
00:35:28.518 --> 00:35:30.719
records carefully, hear competing perspectives.
00:35:31.619 --> 00:35:35.668
All of that work we just expect FOI workers to do serially and then cross their
00:35:35.668 --> 00:35:39.636
fingers and hope that nothing becomes a matter to be appealed to.
00:35:41.658 --> 00:35:48.838
So I think what's lost when we envision and we organize FOI work as a matter
00:35:48.838 --> 00:35:55.133
that can be implemented through technical rationality We lose the ability to, one,
00:35:56.478 --> 00:36:03.858
develop paradigmatic examples or shared examples that can broadcast,
00:36:06.938 --> 00:36:10.314
analogies or ways of thinking about competing cases.
00:36:11.838 --> 00:36:18.028
There is a collection of some orders of the OIPC that are particularly instructive,
00:36:18.028 --> 00:36:21.953
that it's held within information access operations in the Ministry of Citizen Services.
00:36:22.818 --> 00:36:29.475
But I'm working on right now how to characterize the inexhaustiveness of that.
00:36:30.718 --> 00:36:34.478
That's kind of the next frontier for me. So I think that's one of the things
00:36:34.478 --> 00:36:37.777
that's lost is the ability to actually talk about paradigmatic cases.
00:36:38.648 --> 00:36:43.988
But again, it's the ability to own judgments and be accountable for what you're
00:36:43.988 --> 00:36:49.298
doing, to isolate oneself from undue influences.
00:36:49.298 --> 00:36:53.858
And undue influences in FOI can be, you know, everyone's worried about...
00:36:54.980 --> 00:37:00.071
Political interference and whether a minister's office would interfere with an FOI request.
00:37:00.414 --> 00:37:05.011
I'm less concerned about that than I am about the FOI worker who has 10 other files.
00:37:07.190 --> 00:37:11.590
That they've got going on, and they aren't structurally given permission to
00:37:11.590 --> 00:37:12.923
take the time to get it right.
00:37:13.770 --> 00:37:19.640
And their default, I worry, is to make the decision that will cause the least resistance,
00:37:21.810 --> 00:37:28.170
for them within the ambit of their own job. And that might be incongruous with
00:37:28.510 --> 00:37:31.760
the needs of an applicant, which are the same as any applicant's needs.
00:37:32.027 --> 00:37:36.683
And all of our needs as FYI advocates is secrecy or not, we need to get it right.
00:37:37.470 --> 00:37:41.935
We need to get it right. Unless we have, and then FIPA, or at least myself,
00:37:42.284 --> 00:37:48.629
I don't necessarily have any quarrels with any of the concepts of the exemptions in FOIPA.
00:37:49.770 --> 00:37:54.370
I learned to appreciate the wisdom of things like the deliberative privilege
00:37:54.370 --> 00:37:58.009
or policy advice exemption that have. I believe in that personally.
00:37:59.030 --> 00:38:05.219
But I don't think we take the time to really think through what these are for,
00:38:05.910 --> 00:38:10.840
when we're not actually encouraging and giving space for FOI workers to get
00:38:10.840 --> 00:38:11.970
these decisions correct.
00:38:12.905 --> 00:38:16.180
Yeah, I'll just ask, you know, briefly, you kind of mentioned this already a
00:38:16.180 --> 00:38:19.980
little bit, but I mean, just succinctly, I know our workers really given enough
00:38:19.980 --> 00:38:21.900
guidance on the difference between
00:38:21.900 --> 00:38:25.827
information that must be withheld and information that may be withheld.
00:38:26.698 --> 00:38:28.150
Is that delineated?
00:38:28.150 --> 00:38:31.847
Is that explained? Is there discussion among them about how that's done?
00:38:34.890 --> 00:38:36.450
The collapse of modal verbs is,
00:38:36.450 --> 00:38:41.128
I think, what we referred to this or what happens to this in the report.
00:38:42.683 --> 00:38:46.004
No, not really. We don't find a lot of indication,
00:38:48.304 --> 00:38:53.138
in the checklists that we do encounter. There is no distinction between mandatory
00:38:53.370 --> 00:38:56.110
and discretionary exemptions. They are simply exemptions.
00:38:56.801 --> 00:39:00.812
And that's really problematic because that is actually, again, treating this,
00:39:03.504 --> 00:39:09.142
beyond, I think, just technical rationality. But there's also some serious omission,
00:39:09.884 --> 00:39:13.322
as to the complexity and the demands of the task.
00:39:14.175 --> 00:39:19.894
If there's a discretionary exemption, that is more work. That is more thinking
00:39:19.894 --> 00:39:25.495
to do, more judgment to be put in, and more effort to be put into something.
00:39:26.284 --> 00:39:28.704
And I don't mean to criticize, I'm not necessarily suggesting anyone's being
00:39:28.704 --> 00:39:33.564
lazy. I think that the way these documents imagine the work,
00:39:33.564 --> 00:39:34.944
the way they imagine use.
00:39:35.964 --> 00:39:44.488
Is in ways that have a radical and undesirable affinity for efficiency.
00:39:45.464 --> 00:39:49.804
And they are completely discarding the fact that we need to hit the brakes and
00:39:49.804 --> 00:39:52.922
know, oh, okay, no, I actually have to make a decision. It's not acceptable.
00:39:53.724 --> 00:39:57.414
Hannah Arendt told us in Eichmann in Jerusalem to just say, I got caught up
00:39:57.414 --> 00:39:59.524
in the moments and I just went with it.
00:39:59.524 --> 00:40:02.214
I think that's actually something rather close to what Eichmann said and I'm
00:40:02.214 --> 00:40:07.674
not suggesting by any means that there are traces of Nazification in the way
00:40:07.674 --> 00:40:11.162
we imagine FOI, but I'm making the point, I hope,
00:40:11.924 --> 00:40:17.954
that the judgment and bureaucracy have a deeply important relationship.
00:40:17.954 --> 00:40:24.340
It's never okay to appeal to a process as a justification for why a decision was made.
00:40:25.084 --> 00:40:30.584
I have felt this way, I think, largely as two influences on this idea.
00:40:30.584 --> 00:40:34.204
One, being Jewish and the legacy of the Holocaust.
00:40:34.798 --> 00:40:38.577
Even before I became a student of political theory, I was interested in this idea.
00:40:39.444 --> 00:40:44.864
But also it just reminds me of, again, being a journalist in secondary school
00:40:44.864 --> 00:40:49.148
and being told, oh, you can't file FOY requests, why?
00:40:49.623 --> 00:40:54.105
Oh, because I believe what I was told at the time, it impacts student learning,
00:40:54.105 --> 00:40:55.915
and we just can't have that.
00:40:55.915 --> 00:41:00.455
And I keep asking why, and there was no answer. The worst was when I think a
00:41:00.455 --> 00:41:05.545
senior official came down to my school and said, we're going to be liable for
00:41:05.545 --> 00:41:07.613
something you publish. And I kept asking for what.
00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:10.365
At one point I leaned forward and I said something to the effect of,
00:41:10.365 --> 00:41:14.925
I'm going to name five areas of law, like defamation, privacy, copyright, etc.
00:41:15.265 --> 00:41:18.375
And I want you to indicate to me what you think you might be liable for.
00:41:19.165 --> 00:41:22.185
And I was obviously a very interesting person in high school,
00:41:22.185 --> 00:41:26.635
but what it taught me from that experience is you can't ever allow someone to
00:41:26.635 --> 00:41:30.255
make a decision without being answerable for it.
00:41:30.255 --> 00:41:33.205
And in a way, I think that's the whole point of Western philosophy.
00:41:33.205 --> 00:41:34.315
That was the first thing we read.
00:41:36.545 --> 00:41:39.504
From Socrates when I was taking introductory political philosophy.
00:41:40.345 --> 00:41:43.765
But it's just kind of an elaboration of that idea.
00:41:44.985 --> 00:41:48.515
Assembly lines are actually great technologies. Like, I'm not against,
00:41:48.515 --> 00:41:54.605
you know, how wondrous it is that we can actually, like, apply that as an analogy
00:41:54.605 --> 00:41:58.075
for manufacturing vehicles to FOI.
00:41:58.075 --> 00:42:02.275
Like, there is absolutely merit to that. I'm not suggesting we all slow down
00:42:02.275 --> 00:42:05.485
everything in the sake of questioning all the time.
00:42:05.485 --> 00:42:12.076
But I do think there is merit to, again, displacing the focus on timeliness,
00:42:12.705 --> 00:42:16.645
and taking time to contemplate on the things that an applicant actually needs.
00:42:16.645 --> 00:42:22.625
Which, again, is the right documents delivered within the right time and severed rightly.
00:42:23.345 --> 00:42:27.735
That was how we ended up referring to this as correctness. And it sounds like
00:42:27.735 --> 00:42:33.362
a very basic, kind of has Aristotelian characteristics to it a little bit.
00:42:34.825 --> 00:42:38.965
And it sounds kind of obvious at the end of it, kind of misleadingly slow.
00:42:39.645 --> 00:42:45.338
But we were studying a system that really does not privilege that,
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:50.277
uh that that valuation and i don't think it's the fault of the public service
00:42:50.277 --> 00:42:54.907
too i think that that uh there's perhaps an affinity among uh foi advocates
00:42:54.907 --> 00:42:57.011
to also be those who make um uh,
00:42:57.947 --> 00:43:03.477
calls for efficiency which uh when um uh you know that that might be an acceptable
00:43:03.477 --> 00:43:07.667
line of arguments when you're talking about healthcare administration um but uh if,
00:43:08.447 --> 00:43:12.807
without nuance i think that can also license some um things that we don't want
00:43:12.807 --> 00:43:17.793
which is um cuts to records management works which ultimately makes retrieval.
00:43:20.227 --> 00:43:24.527
More complex, or complicated, I should say, to appreciate the distinction.
00:43:25.607 --> 00:43:31.904
The underfunding of FOI workers as an area of practice in the public service,
00:43:32.078 --> 00:43:33.477
even sufficient number of them,
00:43:34.287 --> 00:43:38.567
people doing FOI off the side of their desks in smaller public bodies with no
00:43:38.567 --> 00:43:42.207
guidance from the provincial governments about how to do that work.
00:43:42.207 --> 00:43:47.119
And I say no, there is a manual that exists, but it's an open secret that it's deeply and exhaustive.
00:43:47.821 --> 00:43:51.887
So I think that's what we lose. We lose the ability to be agile,
00:43:52.287 --> 00:43:57.928
to develop shared examples, to develop expertise, and to center the things that we care about.
00:43:58.624 --> 00:44:03.068
Spencer, I think you touched on a really important theme here in the report.
00:44:03.068 --> 00:44:06.867
I just wanted to kind of get a little bit more into it. This discussion of efficiency,
00:44:07.728 --> 00:44:11.778
the emphasis on the process becoming this all-encompassing aspect of what's
00:44:11.778 --> 00:44:15.238
done as opposed to, you know, general principles or notions of judgment.
00:44:15.633 --> 00:44:19.738
And I think one of the ways we see that in some of the documents you've identified
00:44:19.738 --> 00:44:25.708
here is this focus on timelines, right? Focus on, you know, the FOI request
00:44:26.868 --> 00:44:29.349
as a timeline managed thing.
00:44:30.448 --> 00:44:36.977
And with that benchmarking the timeline to the 30-day statutory limited.
00:44:37.220 --> 00:44:42.198
And so what starts off being a maximum, right, you must respond to a request
00:44:42.198 --> 00:44:46.915
within 30 days, I think that starts to become the operational norm.
00:44:48.148 --> 00:44:50.392
Did you see that? And how do you think that happens?
00:44:51.216 --> 00:44:53.208
Absolutely. I did encounter that.
00:44:55.408 --> 00:45:00.518
The one kind of constant visual across all of the public bodies that did supply
00:45:00.518 --> 00:45:06.548
some sort of diagram was this very stadial sequential representation of the
00:45:06.548 --> 00:45:09.363
different steps in processing an FOI request,
00:45:10.108 --> 00:45:15.448
usually annotated with some indication of how many days each step should take.
00:45:15.448 --> 00:45:23.308
And then when you sum all of those time periods, you get a range that you get
00:45:23.748 --> 00:45:26.595
one number and that it extends to something that's like 30 days.
00:45:27.488 --> 00:45:34.268
I think the way that that happens is two things. One, there's no actual expression
00:45:34.268 --> 00:45:38.583
outside of the statute itself that you need to move quickly.
00:45:38.758 --> 00:45:41.548
There's no indication that this is, in fact, an urgent matter.
00:45:41.548 --> 00:45:45.519
And it could be with applicants. As a journalist, I certainly know this. but um,
00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:47.557
The second thing is.
00:45:50.261 --> 00:45:53.264
The type of documents that we were looking at have the effect of,
00:45:54.201 --> 00:45:56.911
again, standardization. They're not all standards, guides, et cetera,
00:45:56.911 --> 00:46:02.598
but they all profess some sort of standardizing-like effect or organizing effect.
00:46:04.201 --> 00:46:07.921
What's represented here is normal to all of us. It's shared as common to all
00:46:07.921 --> 00:46:13.228
of us, unless we're pointing out an exemption explicitly by saying this isn't always the case.
00:46:14.087 --> 00:46:19.581
But when you say something ordinarily takes place in 30 days and you don't qualify
00:46:19.581 --> 00:46:23.881
it at all, I think it's just very natural to interpret.
00:46:25.521 --> 00:46:29.821
It's very in keeping, I think, with a charitable interpretation of what that
00:46:29.821 --> 00:46:36.341
document means to take away from that, oh, this 30 days is how long every FOI request should take.
00:46:36.341 --> 00:46:40.671
Um that's that that is that is that's that's that's normal that's appropriate
00:46:40.671 --> 00:46:44.911
it is not it's not you know it's a standard how could it be injurious to anyone
00:46:44.911 --> 00:46:47.573
i assume the standard was was constructed uh
00:46:48.001 --> 00:46:51.901
in an attempt to be fair to everyone's interest in this to it to to to manage
00:46:51.901 --> 00:46:54.052
economy efficiency effectiveness etc um,
00:46:54.781 --> 00:46:58.161
this the whole point of having something in a document like this is that we
00:46:58.161 --> 00:47:04.861
have a a type of typified pattern of action to achieve uh this um the this contract
00:47:04.861 --> 00:47:07.137
among different values.
00:47:07.949 --> 00:47:11.901
I think that's how it happens. You put that in a document, you don't really
00:47:11.901 --> 00:47:15.803
describe the conditions under which it's supposed to be interpreted.
00:47:16.421 --> 00:47:22.821
There isn't, again, already, because of the assembly line way of organizing
00:47:22.821 --> 00:47:24.492
FOI work and the very, very,
00:47:25.801 --> 00:47:30.041
strong bifurcation of people who know the records and people who know the law
00:47:30.041 --> 00:47:33.142
in the DC public service because of the centralization.
00:47:34.367 --> 00:47:36.874
You don't get anyone who is empowered.
00:47:38.902 --> 00:47:45.280
To share with others that's, oh, hey, the statute actually says we need to do this without delay.
00:47:46.402 --> 00:47:52.162
We're supposed to move with haste. And even if the statute shouldn't be the only source of that.
00:47:53.082 --> 00:47:57.212
The democratic ethics that underwrite something like FOI also demand that you
00:47:57.212 --> 00:48:01.482
move quickly and not take an extra day unless it's necessary.
00:48:01.731 --> 00:48:05.862
And even then, we have to have a discussion as to whether or not the public
00:48:05.862 --> 00:48:08.642
body's interests are overriding an applicant's.
00:48:09.702 --> 00:48:14.052
There are an ethics to all of these questions. But I think the way that it happens
00:48:14.052 --> 00:48:18.152
is, again, we have a lack of appreciation, much like that example earlier about
00:48:18.152 --> 00:48:22.322
bullshit, for the power of documentation.
00:48:23.174 --> 00:48:26.562
This is not an innocent technology. It's really powerful. There's a reason Max
00:48:26.562 --> 00:48:32.932
Weber describes bureaucracy in economy and society with reference to the management of written files.
00:48:33.727 --> 00:48:37.634
I think if I can go one step further, how this is happening,
00:48:38.542 --> 00:48:40.962
and this is perhaps where I think I have more learning to do,
00:48:40.962 --> 00:48:47.381
But my hypothesis is that increasingly, as inscription becomes more and more possible.
00:48:48.810 --> 00:48:53.240
Um uh i'm taking this with a view of media history looking at the printing press
00:48:53.240 --> 00:48:56.692
looking at different ways of copying photographing or photocopying uh,
00:48:57.410 --> 00:49:02.026
making facsimiles faxing etc telecommunications up and through to presence um
00:49:02.317 --> 00:49:06.780
it's really easy to create a document in a in a in a collaborative environment
00:49:06.780 --> 00:49:12.070
you literally have collaborative software for this reason um it's so easy to create like you know,
00:49:13.130 --> 00:49:16.760
a document that um doesn't have a consistent and graphic ideology,
00:49:16.760 --> 00:49:18.551
you've got all these little fonts. How cool.
00:49:18.732 --> 00:49:21.733
You have so much choice. You're overwhelmed with choice.
00:49:22.590 --> 00:49:31.390
Perhaps we've displaced the appropriate focus on what a document is for and what it can do.
00:49:32.030 --> 00:49:35.693
And I think the ease and possibility of just inscribing in general.
00:49:37.690 --> 00:49:42.930
Among the excitement of that, the last 25 years or older than more,
00:49:43.410 --> 00:49:44.830
the longer that I've been alive,
00:49:45.750 --> 00:49:50.690
workplace computing has been popular and software like it, I think that we've
00:49:51.070 --> 00:49:53.300
perhaps lost an appreciation for documentation.
00:49:53.300 --> 00:49:59.807
It's why when I graduate, when I leave FIPA in quite a while still,
00:50:01.050 --> 00:50:07.080
I'm always going to retain with me the importance of making a good-looking document.
00:50:07.080 --> 00:50:10.850
Not because I like graphic design, I like editorial design, I like newspaper
00:50:10.850 --> 00:50:15.720
design, but it's not innocent. It's not innocent. And it has an effect on the
00:50:15.720 --> 00:50:19.350
way we interpret our obligations in any workplace.
00:50:19.790 --> 00:50:23.540
And I think that's, I try to evangelize about that everywhere I go.
00:50:23.540 --> 00:50:26.068
But I think that's how that 30-day thing happens.
00:50:27.142 --> 00:50:30.648
Yeah, I appreciate the emphasis on thoughtfulness, right? On,
00:50:31.188 --> 00:50:34.648
you know, thoughtfulness of process and thoughtfulness of judgment and interpretation
00:50:34.648 --> 00:50:36.923
and of inscription and documentation.
00:50:37.411 --> 00:50:40.563
And that kind of connects to this notion of correctness. And if I had to,
00:50:40.952 --> 00:50:45.578
if I had to say that there was one line in the report or one argument that would
00:50:45.578 --> 00:50:49.258
raise eyebrows amongst the transparency, you know, community in Canada would
00:50:49.258 --> 00:50:52.057
be that correctness, you know, must replace timeliness.
00:50:52.868 --> 00:50:56.508
Because we've been, and I myself included, and still am, someone who says access
00:50:56.508 --> 00:50:57.827
delayed is access denied.
00:50:58.251 --> 00:51:03.005
And yet at the same time, we want to see faster responses here.
00:51:04.468 --> 00:51:07.828
I guess there's a danger, right? If people take our recommendations to heart,
00:51:07.828 --> 00:51:11.823
which I would love them to do, and there is a greater emphasis on correctness,
00:51:12.786 --> 00:51:18.178
how do we ensure that that doesn't become a justification for further delay?
00:51:18.178 --> 00:51:21.738
In other words, we're taking as long as we need to get it correct and accuracy
00:51:21.738 --> 00:51:26.768
as a focus, is there a possibility that that can actually shift things into
00:51:26.768 --> 00:51:28.743
a further state of systemic delay?
00:51:30.027 --> 00:51:36.882
It totally can. I think any time that you ask an authority to assume,
00:51:38.247 --> 00:51:44.470
to be a little bit more autonomous, define in the face of complex goals,
00:51:46.287 --> 00:51:50.530
embrace the complexity of it, and responsibly exercise discretion,
00:51:50.774 --> 00:51:53.847
I think there's always going to be a concern about interpretation.
00:51:53.847 --> 00:51:56.573
Because that's fundamentally what we're really concerned about,
00:51:57.167 --> 00:52:02.947
by giving the public service even more license to define the terms of when a request is fulfilled.
00:52:03.754 --> 00:52:09.489
I think the way around that is we establish further communications between,
00:52:11.307 --> 00:52:17.217
certainly, the Ministry of Citizen Services and the applicant community about
00:52:17.217 --> 00:52:18.985
the way that FOI is administered.
00:52:20.547 --> 00:52:26.456
There is a serious deficit of applicant experiences outside of the realm of personal requests.
00:52:26.909 --> 00:52:30.497
It's informing the way that work is conducted. I think there's a lot of focus
00:52:30.497 --> 00:52:36.597
on technology that is not going to solve the serious problems with correctness
00:52:36.597 --> 00:52:39.027
that I think we're experiencing.
00:52:39.027 --> 00:52:41.827
I think that there's a lot to be looked at there.
00:52:41.827 --> 00:52:43.457
So I think putting applicants in
00:52:43.457 --> 00:52:49.896
conversation with FOI workers and senior managers at FOI workers is how we.
00:52:51.767 --> 00:52:55.547
Ensure that that increased discretion, that increased autonomy that FIPA is
00:52:55.547 --> 00:52:59.807
recommending be given when we're talking about a principle of correctness.
00:52:59.807 --> 00:53:01.251
I think that's how we make it accountable.
00:53:02.347 --> 00:53:06.087
And I think the principle of correctness is we need it to be answerable.
00:53:06.087 --> 00:53:10.847
There is nothing that's done in the name of public service that can go without a justification.
00:53:12.187 --> 00:53:15.977
I've taken that with me in journalism, but it's from the Supreme Court of Canada
00:53:15.977 --> 00:53:21.422
in their ruling and the Vavilov administrative law case where in the head note of the decision,
00:53:22.327 --> 00:53:25.874
Chief Justice says the public service needs to adopt a, quote,
00:53:26.118 --> 00:53:27.384
culture of justification.
00:53:28.127 --> 00:53:32.962
The correctness doesn't exist without that. So I think that's how we make it accountable.
00:53:33.833 --> 00:53:40.557
So, Spencer, your research examined how FOI work is organized in documents rather
00:53:40.557 --> 00:53:43.168
than directly observing every workplace.
00:53:43.620 --> 00:53:49.157
So how should listeners, how should we distinguish between an absence of documented
00:53:49.157 --> 00:53:53.007
standards and proof that good practice is not happening?
00:53:54.897 --> 00:53:57.837
Well, I think, firstly, and I've had to become comfortable with this,
00:53:58.537 --> 00:54:03.937
is that everyone has to, I think, become a little bit more comfortable with
00:54:04.377 --> 00:54:09.447
the notion that simply because it isn't on paper doesn't necessarily mean it didn't exist.
00:54:09.447 --> 00:54:13.723
But there are other consequences for something not being there.
00:54:14.193 --> 00:54:18.277
I think my answer to this is really informed by.
00:54:21.404 --> 00:54:25.838
My thinking on how documented government decisions was ineffective.
00:54:27.167 --> 00:54:32.196
Documenting government decisions, and as BC's interpretation of the duty to
00:54:32.196 --> 00:54:37.976
document, wasn't really taken out, I think, because it didn't really solve a
00:54:37.976 --> 00:54:42.076
problem for the people who were actually being asked to implement it.
00:54:42.986 --> 00:54:46.696
It was about prioritizing, like I said earlier, secondary users over primary
00:54:46.696 --> 00:54:53.036
users. It was about documenting decisions, which is not what archivists would
00:54:53.036 --> 00:54:54.445
say documentation is for.
00:54:54.706 --> 00:54:57.225
Documentation is for creating evidence of action.
00:54:57.956 --> 00:55:02.236
It's about activity. It's about creating documents, not necessarily because
00:55:02.236 --> 00:55:06.396
they're in the interest of secondary users.
00:55:06.588 --> 00:55:11.237
Sometimes we explicitly create documents for that, like annual reporting, which are publishable.
00:55:11.980 --> 00:55:18.936
But unpublished internal documentation is primarily for the public service to
00:55:18.936 --> 00:55:23.550
actually effectively administer its functions on behalf of the public.
00:55:24.403 --> 00:55:30.146
I don't think that it's a matter of whether we should freak out or not because
00:55:30.146 --> 00:55:32.071
something does or does not exist in written form.
00:55:32.656 --> 00:55:39.328
As I attempted to show, something can be written down and be quite useless. It could be bullshit.
00:55:39.502 --> 00:55:42.946
We don't want to encourage that. We don't want to encourage people to just start
00:55:42.946 --> 00:55:47.136
writing stuff down as an end to itself. Documentation.
00:55:49.156 --> 00:55:53.968
Is not an end to itself. It is for something. We just have to center that a lot more. So,
00:55:54.605 --> 00:55:59.474
issue of whether something needs to exist in documentary form comes with other.
00:56:00.774 --> 00:56:04.534
Solutions too, or sorry, questions too, like how constantly does it need to
00:56:04.534 --> 00:56:07.004
be updated? Who is going to own these documents?
00:56:07.247 --> 00:56:11.204
Documentation also has intense, good documentation has very intense labor costs.
00:56:11.204 --> 00:56:16.384
I know because I've been trying to write an introductory guide to journalism
00:56:16.384 --> 00:56:21.364
for my newspaper for like, I've been writing these for so long and studying
00:56:21.364 --> 00:56:23.124
the construction of these documents for so long.
00:56:23.409 --> 00:56:27.420
Right after we're done, I'm going to be working on it again. I'm like six months in.
00:56:28.154 --> 00:56:31.158
It's not particularly long. I'm like 30-something pages in.
00:56:32.154 --> 00:56:37.219
It's a big document compared to an essay, but it takes time to produce these things.
00:56:37.457 --> 00:56:41.374
We want documents that themselves actually embody correctness a little bit,
00:56:41.909 --> 00:56:46.123
that are true to their original purposes and the premises for which that technology exists.
00:56:46.373 --> 00:56:53.502
So we need to think about the best ways of communicating knowledge.
00:56:53.740 --> 00:56:59.759
That might be verbal, as in the case for apprenticeships, when you're training one person.
00:57:00.032 --> 00:57:03.544
But when you've got a lot of people who are being trained at different points,
00:57:03.544 --> 00:57:06.747
when you've got a lot of people entering an organization from various backgrounds,
00:57:07.020 --> 00:57:09.516
the starting points are radically different.
00:57:10.274 --> 00:57:14.604
You need a way to establish some sort of shared collective knowledge.
00:57:14.604 --> 00:57:21.109
And I spend a lot of time in the past year thinking about the anthropology of learning,
00:57:21.814 --> 00:57:26.711
and study the literature on communities of practice, as is really popular in
00:57:26.966 --> 00:57:30.049
not only educational studies, but management literature, too.
00:57:30.327 --> 00:57:32.254
I'm not convinced all of it is...
00:57:34.490 --> 00:57:37.955
Really resolves the issues that we're seeing with FOI.
00:57:37.955 --> 00:57:42.725
Because I think because of the audience who these documents are for,
00:57:42.725 --> 00:57:47.825
there might be some promise in the study of scientific knowledge a little bit.
00:57:47.825 --> 00:57:52.485
So what I was saying earlier about paradigms and shared examples,
00:57:52.485 --> 00:57:57.635
I just started reading The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn from the 1960s.
00:57:58.515 --> 00:57:59.475
A wonderful book.
00:58:00.595 --> 00:58:05.093
I knew about it before, but I hadn't read it. And I wish I read it when I started in the study.
00:58:06.051 --> 00:58:09.895
Because I think like when you're like, FOY is constantly on the move.
00:58:09.895 --> 00:58:13.215
When we're talking about, you know, creating guidance, then guidance is going
00:58:13.215 --> 00:58:17.295
to have to change. We might have to have something that teaches the reasoning
00:58:17.295 --> 00:58:21.806
behind FOY, like about FOY work, how to actually engage in evidentiary reasoning
00:58:22.020 --> 00:58:23.936
for this particular type of work.
00:58:24.575 --> 00:58:28.875
But that's very different than inscribing like, hey, here's what the OIPC said,
00:58:29.675 --> 00:58:35.795
there's been an evolution in their order on Section 21, for example.
00:58:36.695 --> 00:58:41.015
That knowledge is on the move, but at a different pace than other types of knowledge.
00:58:41.015 --> 00:58:47.225
So all of those issues need to get a lot more attention. So I think if I could
00:58:47.225 --> 00:58:51.411
boil that down to just a few practitioner points, if you will.
00:58:51.684 --> 00:58:54.395
One is that you've got to think about what documentation is for.
00:58:54.703 --> 00:58:57.905
That's the first thing FIBA is calling. We're not calling for performative paperwork.
00:58:57.905 --> 00:59:02.067
We're not calling for bullshit documentation. That's actually,
00:59:02.340 --> 00:59:04.842
that devalues all of their forms of documentation.
00:59:05.756 --> 00:59:11.876
And two, think about the lifespan of that document and how it's going to be,
00:59:12.376 --> 00:59:17.768
kept current within the boundaries of the resources that are available to you.
00:59:18.448 --> 00:59:23.527
I think I have a little bit more confidence, say, making these points now,
00:59:23.736 --> 00:59:27.656
having a little bit of occupational experience making this literature,
00:59:27.996 --> 00:59:31.178
albeit in a different domain, but also studying its production.
00:59:32.025 --> 00:59:37.606
And I think that's how we get out of the binary of, do we get mad if it's not
00:59:37.606 --> 00:59:40.379
written down? And do we celebrate if it's written down, but it's bad?
00:59:41.036 --> 00:59:43.392
I think we just think about the purpose of documentation.
00:59:44.448 --> 00:59:49.998
Yeah. So, you know, there are those gaps. So, you know, where did tacit knowledge
00:59:49.998 --> 00:59:54.748
and professional judgment, did that, was that obvious? Did you notice that?
00:59:54.748 --> 00:59:57.235
And where did that appear in these documents?
00:59:57.903 --> 01:00:05.588
Not frequently. Tacit knowledge is obviously embodied, but there was no indication
01:00:05.588 --> 01:00:10.401
that this is the point where you need to rely on your tacit knowledge.
01:00:13.978 --> 01:00:18.988
Last summer, I think I described to Mike in a meeting that I thought the tenor
01:00:18.988 --> 01:00:21.134
of some of these documents was overconfident.
01:00:23.138 --> 01:00:25.964
They kind of overshot the runway of their own contents a little bit.
01:00:26.237 --> 01:00:28.168
But that's what I was getting at. It's like tacit knowledge,
01:00:28.168 --> 01:00:31.068
again, not bad. Like, we want the development of tacit knowledge.
01:00:31.068 --> 01:00:34.968
Like, no one, no one, like, there's a sociologist, or not sociologist,
01:00:34.968 --> 01:00:39.088
a historian of science named Lorraine Daston on another podcast that I listened
01:00:39.088 --> 01:00:44.508
to a little while ago, where she said a society that runs on thin rules is not a happy society.
01:00:44.508 --> 01:00:50.188
A society that runs on, like, algorithms and gives everyone explicit indication
01:00:50.188 --> 01:00:52.648
of what action to take at every step is not good.
01:00:52.648 --> 01:00:57.148
You can't accommodate all possible scenarios. You cannot actually accommodate
01:00:57.148 --> 01:01:00.668
the novel, which has yet to be theorized and typified into a pattern of action.
01:01:00.668 --> 01:01:02.703
You can't do anything with that. We need tacit knowledge.
01:01:03.568 --> 01:01:08.268
But we also need to be able to learn from it. And there was no knowledge either
01:01:08.268 --> 01:01:12.171
existed in the worldview of these documents as either,
01:01:13.158 --> 01:01:17.578
embodied and you are on your own, literally, because there's no encouragement
01:01:17.578 --> 01:01:22.312
to collaborate with peers and resolve cases through conversation necessarily,
01:01:23.138 --> 01:01:29.248
or reference this document, which is highly static, despite documenting something
01:01:29.248 --> 01:01:34.636
that is on the move, albeit glacial at times, as most law is.
01:01:35.218 --> 01:01:36.818
But there is no.
01:01:39.030 --> 01:01:46.089
Spectrum of how knowledge evolves. And I think that's really to applicants' detriment, for sure.
01:01:48.244 --> 01:01:53.204
Spencer, you mentioned Kuhn's work and the idea of a revolution.
01:01:54.104 --> 01:01:57.154
I think some of the recommendations here we are calling, I think it's fair to
01:01:57.154 --> 01:02:01.684
say, for a bit of a paradigm shift in the way that access is thought about and practiced.
01:02:02.044 --> 01:02:04.744
And there are some very specific recommendations that are attached to that,
01:02:04.744 --> 01:02:10.312
right? We call for better documentation skills, stronger record-keeping statute,
01:02:10.660 --> 01:02:11.644
as you mentioned before.
01:02:12.484 --> 01:02:15.838
Recognizing record-keeping is this core administrative responsibility.
01:02:16.280 --> 01:02:20.704
And also recognizing and embracing, maybe cultivating greater authority for
01:02:20.704 --> 01:02:22.114
information professionals.
01:02:22.746 --> 01:02:25.024
This is a kind of a classic chicken and egg scenario.
01:02:26.704 --> 01:02:31.014
What's the entry point for this? Which of these recommendations to kind of kickstart
01:02:31.014 --> 01:02:34.919
a paradigm shift in how we think about FOI and practice FOI? What comes first?
01:02:35.640 --> 01:02:41.418
That's a fascinating question because when I was starting this,
01:02:41.418 --> 01:02:44.908
I read a lot of literature on implementation studies because that was still
01:02:44.908 --> 01:02:46.368
the language that I was using to,
01:02:46.868 --> 01:02:50.826
move from administration to think about implementation and the,
01:02:51.908 --> 01:02:54.540
classic studies of that in the 70s and 80s.
01:02:55.514 --> 01:02:58.830
So I spent some time thinking about that again when I was drafting the recommendations.
01:02:59.132 --> 01:03:02.668
I think record keeping is the entry point into this. I think it starts with
01:03:03.028 --> 01:03:05.227
the documentation, like with creation.
01:03:06.228 --> 01:03:09.588
Creators end on the folks that are producing documentation,
01:03:10.268 --> 01:03:15.128
not about teaching FOI specifically or regulating its administration,
01:03:15.128 --> 01:03:21.021
but just I think encouraging a culture of document literacy,
01:03:21.568 --> 01:03:26.398
which includes document management, records management, is the right place to start.
01:03:26.398 --> 01:03:29.148
And again, cultural shifts in large organizations are deeply,
01:03:29.457 --> 01:03:31.309
deeply difficult. So I think.
01:03:33.468 --> 01:03:36.998
By no means am I trying to underestimate the difficulty of that,
01:03:36.998 --> 01:03:40.584
but record keeping most certainly I think is the entry point.
01:03:41.148 --> 01:03:47.358
I also think that's an excellent way to remind the public service that we don't
01:03:47.358 --> 01:03:51.948
have to choose between advancing the interests of the public and advancing the
01:03:51.948 --> 01:03:53.250
interests of a bureaucracy.
01:03:54.228 --> 01:03:56.320
In this scenario, they're actually mutually constitutive.
01:03:57.328 --> 01:04:05.086
Records management is beneficial to both parties in the FOI social contract over here.
01:04:05.748 --> 01:04:07.959
So I think record keeping is where I would start.
01:04:09.421 --> 01:04:14.757
And I think that's a good observation. And that seems to be the kind of change,
01:04:15.601 --> 01:04:18.351
some of the stuff that's being recommended here for good reason is going to
01:04:18.351 --> 01:04:20.541
require some significant legislative change.
01:04:20.841 --> 01:04:24.891
And it's overdue, especially since we have some statutes, the IMA,
01:04:24.891 --> 01:04:28.761
for example, which, you know, functionally just does not serve the purpose that
01:04:28.761 --> 01:04:32.491
it really ought to, at least was rhetorically said it was going to initially.
01:04:32.863 --> 01:04:42.421
Is it possible to move forward on that record-keeping without any kind of complex law reform process?
01:04:42.421 --> 01:04:45.881
Now, in other words, you think that's within the power of, I suppose that would
01:04:45.881 --> 01:04:50.311
be kind of a top-down tone set from people in positions of ministerial authority
01:04:51.121 --> 01:04:54.253
to kind of launch a culture shift. Is that possible?
01:04:56.021 --> 01:05:01.691
I think it's totally possible that we could see a lot of benefits to record-keeping
01:05:01.691 --> 01:05:06.472
practice without legislative change.
01:05:08.281 --> 01:05:13.181
Ultimately, a statute, as we saw with AIMA, is not going to accomplish the cultural,
01:05:15.701 --> 01:05:21.181
shifts that we need to see for this to be meaningful. This is absolutely something,
01:05:22.141 --> 01:05:28.701
where folks with experience in design and change management bring a lot of value to the conversation.
01:05:30.521 --> 01:05:34.731
I think there's a lot to be like service designers, particularly our routine
01:05:34.731 --> 01:05:38.458
designers for organizations. I think that that.
01:05:39.177 --> 01:05:43.792
Even like the, you know, celebrating good instances of records management,
01:05:44.446 --> 01:05:48.516
finding some way to point to a unit or even like an individual employee who
01:05:48.516 --> 01:05:51.627
is, you know, you know, takes the time to manage their files.
01:05:52.606 --> 01:05:56.626
That that's an example for others. I mean, this is this is something from my own office.
01:05:56.626 --> 01:06:02.706
I'm just kind of thinking about I know who because we only have 20 paid employees.
01:06:02.706 --> 01:06:06.136
Like it's a small place in the grand scheme of things. so we can,
01:06:06.136 --> 01:06:10.086
you know, I know who pays a lot of attention to their records management and
01:06:10.086 --> 01:06:16.687
who refused us to name files correctly and all the folks in between.
01:06:17.426 --> 01:06:20.486
And, you know, every few weeks, it's, you know, as we talk about the stories
01:06:20.486 --> 01:06:24.356
we liked and the photographs that we liked in our newspaper,
01:06:24.356 --> 01:06:26.716
I mean, one of the things that I try and do is like, okay, and I'd like to thank
01:06:26.716 --> 01:06:30.516
this person for, you know, making up, naming a folder correctly that everyone
01:06:30.516 --> 01:06:32.136
laughs and I'm like, no, no, it's serious.
01:06:32.136 --> 01:06:34.358
Like this person made this available to you.
01:06:34.613 --> 01:06:39.182
So eventually over time, the joke has worn off and there are those that actually.
01:06:40.846 --> 01:06:46.036
Are really excited about the concept of organizational document management and
01:06:46.036 --> 01:06:49.456
metadata, and that's quite fun to see.
01:06:49.456 --> 01:06:54.996
So I think little things like that, even if it's just not really emerging from
01:06:54.996 --> 01:07:00.406
my research, but my own experience taking the research, I guess,
01:07:00.406 --> 01:07:03.776
and trying to apply it to my own life, I think things like that.
01:07:03.776 --> 01:07:08.536
You don't need statutory change to accomplish a lot of the improvements in record
01:07:08.536 --> 01:07:12.751
keeping, nor will a statute change culture, as we saw with IMA.
01:07:14.709 --> 01:07:18.289
On the flip side of that, you know, the report also calls for independent records
01:07:18.289 --> 01:07:22.369
oversight as a function, you know, with a greater emphasis on annual record
01:07:22.369 --> 01:07:25.412
keeping plans, more active use of standards.
01:07:25.906 --> 01:07:31.309
These are some some larger changes that reflect this idea that the public record
01:07:31.309 --> 01:07:34.129
is something that there needs to be a degree of ownership and oversight over.
01:07:35.569 --> 01:07:40.709
Why is an independent oversight so important? And what would effective oversight
01:07:40.709 --> 01:07:42.717
of the public record itself look like?
01:07:43.951 --> 01:07:45.856
I think independence is important because,
01:07:48.869 --> 01:07:54.669
when we start to actually conduct evaluations or reviews of the way records
01:07:54.669 --> 01:07:59.259
management is done, there are stakes involved, there are reputations,
01:07:59.259 --> 01:08:03.143
there is funding, there are policy objectives on the line.
01:08:04.289 --> 01:08:08.229
The means and the ends kind of mutually constitute themselves as John Dewey
01:08:08.229 --> 01:08:13.199
might say when we start to actually say whether something was good or bad so
01:08:13.199 --> 01:08:17.105
I think that in order to give honest assessments there needs to be some distance,
01:08:18.789 --> 01:08:22.439
from core government in the same way we have an auditor general in the same
01:08:22.439 --> 01:08:27.649
way we have for financial and performance auditing and we have the OIPC for,
01:08:28.969 --> 01:08:33.669
information and privacy and we have officers that let us out of assembly for this reason I think,
01:08:36.269 --> 01:08:39.940
that's why independence is most important. Remind me of the second part of the question.
01:08:41.082 --> 01:08:43.745
Well, I suppose it's about what an independent oversight might look like,
01:08:43.745 --> 01:08:46.245
but we can just drill down on one specific element of that.
01:08:46.245 --> 01:08:50.845
I think, you know, one of the things you expect from an ombuds office or an
01:08:50.845 --> 01:08:57.185
oversight office of some kind is the capacity to call for and indeed to affect
01:08:57.545 --> 01:08:58.975
corrective reforms, right?
01:08:58.975 --> 01:09:03.435
So hypothetically, let's just say we have such an independent office in place
01:09:03.435 --> 01:09:06.995
and everything that we're hoping for has come to pass, and a particular public
01:09:06.995 --> 01:09:12.256
body has just completely failed to meet minimum standards of expectations.
01:09:14.065 --> 01:09:18.025
What should happen in that kind of situation if we do have an independent oversight body?
01:09:18.665 --> 01:09:24.294
What could they do to bring them back in line or perhaps to implement some changes?
01:09:24.729 --> 01:09:30.820
I'm hesitant to say that the evaluator should make binding recommendations because,
01:09:31.985 --> 01:09:35.515
the second that you start to appreciate the technology, culture,
01:09:35.925 --> 01:09:38.006
policy, instrumentation all need to work together.
01:09:39.885 --> 01:09:44.955
And that the only people who are truly best positioned to appreciate that about
01:09:44.955 --> 01:09:47.588
the organization are the folks that work in the organization themselves.
01:09:47.861 --> 01:09:51.105
I don't think that approach will work. I do think that there has to be some
01:09:51.105 --> 01:09:56.360
answerability for it. Like at minimum, there needs to be, I think from the evaluator,
01:09:56.528 --> 01:10:00.864
some indication of the direction that they suggest should be taken in response to it.
01:10:01.605 --> 01:10:05.615
Failures have to be clearly identified. Recommendations can be made,
01:10:05.615 --> 01:10:07.877
but there also has to be follow-up. What I think might be,
01:10:08.643 --> 01:10:14.380
advantageous is that, you know, if it's a severe failure, there are follow-ups
01:10:14.380 --> 01:10:16.480
on a monthly basis, for example.
01:10:17.130 --> 01:10:20.108
And that office is prepared to, you know, call attention to it publicly.
01:10:20.670 --> 01:10:26.430
And if a public body is seriously failing to comply, the legislature is notified
01:10:26.430 --> 01:10:28.868
via some sort of reports about the matter.
01:10:29.690 --> 01:10:35.060
But I do think that the kind of the naming and shaming, as we might crudely
01:10:35.060 --> 01:10:37.260
call it, might be the most effective way.
01:10:37.260 --> 01:10:43.453
Not necessarily, It certainly is weaker in terms of demanding immediate action,
01:10:43.970 --> 01:10:48.280
but I anticipate it will be most effective in terms of working collaboratively
01:10:48.280 --> 01:10:52.720
towards the goals that all public bodies have, which is effectively delivering services.
01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:54.866
And records management is part of that.
01:10:55.550 --> 01:10:59.350
For whatever reason that there are challenges to that, I don't think it's a
01:10:59.350 --> 01:11:05.902
basic public body that's just manifestly dedicated to being lost in a shared drive forever.
01:11:06.134 --> 01:11:09.050
I don't think anyone yearns for that when they go to work.
01:11:09.610 --> 01:11:12.084
So I don't think it faces that challenge.
01:11:12.775 --> 01:11:15.970
So when we talk about the importance of making sure that there's an independent
01:11:15.970 --> 01:11:20.920
oversight body to look after records management, the other element that's made
01:11:20.920 --> 01:11:25.430
clear in the report, Spencer, is the whole dynamic of giving greater emphasis
01:11:25.430 --> 01:11:27.455
on archivists and records managers.
01:11:28.330 --> 01:11:33.620
So what would that look like in practical terms inside a ministry or crown corporations
01:11:33.620 --> 01:11:39.670
and public agencies to see records managers be elevated in terms of their standing
01:11:39.670 --> 01:11:40.680
within the organization?
01:11:40.680 --> 01:11:44.670
And also, if you can, one of the things that I took away from our earlier discussions
01:11:44.670 --> 01:11:48.730
on this was the whole dynamic of custodial and post-custodial errors and the
01:11:48.730 --> 01:11:52.793
impact that has created in devaluing records managers in some of these organizations.
01:11:53.060 --> 01:11:56.932
How does all that play out in the report? And what do you see as the next steps there?
01:11:57.635 --> 01:12:06.101
Right. I think the few ways that we could recognize a more empowered archival
01:12:06.101 --> 01:12:07.589
and records management profession.
01:12:08.421 --> 01:12:16.320
One, we see that they have the resources to be able to produce guidance material.
01:12:17.061 --> 01:12:24.646
They're able to update it quite frequently. I mean, it's an easy thing in concept to do.
01:12:24.913 --> 01:12:30.751
I think we'd also see, and it's super important, is any time that a technology
01:12:30.751 --> 01:12:34.512
of inscription is introduced into the public body,
01:12:35.481 --> 01:12:41.118
a new collaborative software system, an upgrade to such a system,
01:12:42.881 --> 01:12:48.571
we have to have archivists at the table alongside IT privacy, security.
01:12:50.801 --> 01:12:55.183
Technology licensing, etc. as a part of discussing that implementation.
01:12:55.462 --> 01:12:58.921
If it stores and creates information, fantastic.
01:13:00.661 --> 01:13:04.551
But we actually need to find a way not only to secure it from cyber attacks,
01:13:04.551 --> 01:13:09.711
not only to preserve personal information such that it's only used and disclosed
01:13:09.711 --> 01:13:11.125
to those who are authorized to do so.
01:13:11.821 --> 01:13:17.579
We also have to make sure that records can be appropriately organized and retrieved
01:13:17.782 --> 01:13:20.545
to facilitate the public body's needs.
01:13:21.541 --> 01:13:26.541
That's a really, really important absence that I've seen in the public service.
01:13:26.941 --> 01:13:30.671
The Deputy Minister's Committee on Digital and Data, the committee that makes
01:13:30.671 --> 01:13:35.951
a lot of IT, IMIT investments, as I believe the terms of reference describe
01:13:35.951 --> 01:13:40.381
it, doesn't have anyone who does the original IM, Information Management,
01:13:40.381 --> 01:13:41.396
which is a records manager.
01:13:43.501 --> 01:13:46.487
I think that on a similar point, the,
01:13:47.597 --> 01:13:48.157
A sign of,
01:13:50.257 --> 01:13:57.967
a more powerful archival profession is greater precision in terminology.
01:13:57.967 --> 01:14:03.817
So right now, what we're identifying is because of post-custodial record keeping,
01:14:03.817 --> 01:14:06.084
where everyone is their own records manager,
01:14:07.135 --> 01:14:12.757
the scientific aspect of what a document is versus what a record is versus what
01:14:12.757 --> 01:14:16.034
information or data is, is a bit lost.
01:14:16.717 --> 01:14:21.297
We don't, those terms are not interchangeable, but they are treated as interchangeable.
01:14:21.297 --> 01:14:24.137
And I don't think that, you know, as a student of, you know,
01:14:24.137 --> 01:14:27.647
interpretive social sciences, I think that language is really important the
01:14:27.647 --> 01:14:28.770
way we understand our world.
01:14:29.497 --> 01:14:33.877
I don't think, you know, it might sound like I'm just being nitpicky,
01:14:34.517 --> 01:14:41.207
but I do think, you know, every time that you let, or there's a slip up in terminology
01:14:41.207 --> 01:14:42.555
and a confusion of ideas,
01:14:43.438 --> 01:14:46.127
that that does contribute to something down the road that isn't productive.
01:14:46.127 --> 01:14:51.277
So we would see a lot of greater guidance on how to organize files.
01:14:51.277 --> 01:14:56.817
We would see archivists find a way to involve themselves in the orientation
01:14:56.817 --> 01:15:01.799
and onboarding of new employees such that they understand their records management obligations.
01:15:02.061 --> 01:15:07.906
We would see more regular reporting of how records management is implemented.
01:15:09.057 --> 01:15:12.997
On perhaps an annual basis. It becomes something that senior executives are
01:15:12.997 --> 01:15:15.317
familiar with and are acquainted with.
01:15:15.757 --> 01:15:20.337
And importantly, they recognize that when an organization changes,
01:15:20.337 --> 01:15:25.367
when it restructures, when a new position is created which happens all the time
01:15:25.367 --> 01:15:30.074
in the public service, one of the folks that you need to speak with is the archivist.
01:15:30.617 --> 01:15:34.543
Yes, that involves a lot more internal consultation. Yes, that adds another box to tick.
01:15:35.317 --> 01:15:42.277
I think it is beneficial in the long run and I sincerely hope there are public
01:15:42.277 --> 01:15:43.564
bodies that can testify to that.
01:15:44.731 --> 01:15:48.561
Now, as we're looking at the whole dynamic right now of artificial intelligence
01:15:48.561 --> 01:15:52.671
in this space as well, what do you see as the evolving role between the archivists
01:15:52.671 --> 01:15:54.716
and artificial intelligence in this space?
01:15:56.761 --> 01:16:00.911
The one that was discussed most at a conference I attended last July was the
01:16:00.911 --> 01:16:02.101
issue of autoclassification.
01:16:02.441 --> 01:16:08.573
So records that are classified on the basis of content into a predetermined,
01:16:09.621 --> 01:16:12.881
classification scheme that's developed locally for the public body,
01:16:12.881 --> 01:16:14.320
still by a professional archivist.
01:16:15.196 --> 01:16:21.024
Auto-classification is a technology that excited a lot of records managers at that conference.
01:16:21.681 --> 01:16:26.597
I think it's a productive use of artificial intelligence in the public sector.
01:16:28.681 --> 01:16:33.172
I'd invite archivists, obviously, to push back if there were some issues with that.
01:16:33.921 --> 01:16:37.793
But there was only celebration for that idea, and the only issue was,
01:16:38.961 --> 01:16:44.324
I think, around the precision and accuracy of such classification available.
01:16:45.341 --> 01:16:50.991
On the market at the moment. But I think that's certainly one welcome introduction
01:16:50.991 --> 01:16:53.392
of artificial intelligence for records management.
01:16:53.665 --> 01:16:59.492
Otherwise, there's still, this is an area that I didn't look into quite honestly that much.
01:17:00.201 --> 01:17:03.509
But there's lots of research ongoing with it right now.
01:17:04.121 --> 01:17:07.041
There's some folks at UBC who are actually studying that. I had a professor
01:17:07.041 --> 01:17:10.440
who was also, I didn't know he studied records management, but he does.
01:17:10.766 --> 01:17:12.786
I wish I knew that when I was in his class.
01:17:13.501 --> 01:17:19.071
But he's published a few papers on AI and record keeping. I think that auto
01:17:19.071 --> 01:17:21.406
classification is certainly a valuable investment.
01:17:22.811 --> 01:17:26.471
Well, Spencer, we have just a couple more questions before we do a final round
01:17:26.471 --> 01:17:30.501
where I'm going to ask each of you some questions and then we'll wrap this up.
01:17:30.501 --> 01:17:33.527
But I want to talk about Section 67 of FOIPA.
01:17:33.969 --> 01:17:41.155
The report recommends establishing a consultative committee contemplated by Section 67 of FOIPA.
01:17:41.723 --> 01:17:47.911
What does Section 67 say? And what problem would a standing open government committee solve?
01:17:48.487 --> 01:17:49.511
Yeah, so section 67,
01:17:51.511 --> 01:17:55.771
just says the minister responsible for FOIPA, which is the minister of citizen
01:17:55.771 --> 01:17:59.882
services in British Columbia, may form a consultative committee for the act.
01:18:01.008 --> 01:18:04.421
That committee, as far as we're aware, does not exist. I feel like FIPA would
01:18:04.421 --> 01:18:09.372
be in a good position to know if it did, but we've had no indication otherwise.
01:18:10.131 --> 01:18:12.351
So I'm comfortable saying it doesn't and it hasn't been formed.
01:18:12.351 --> 01:18:15.231
Uh i i think uh i was saying earlier
01:18:15.231 --> 01:18:18.592
that there's a deficit of applicant experiences that are uh informing um,
01:18:20.771 --> 01:18:26.681
uh foy uh i think that is a really valuable i think that if it was cast only
01:18:26.681 --> 01:18:32.921
about foy though um if we if we develop such a committee um that uh foy would
01:18:32.921 --> 01:18:35.174
be too narrow of a of a space um,
01:18:37.140 --> 01:18:41.640
or of a field of vision. I really believe in this concept from an American law
01:18:41.640 --> 01:18:42.830
professor named Seth Kreimer.
01:18:43.600 --> 01:18:48.786
He's called it the ecology of transparency. And he points to, we said it in the report,
01:18:49.420 --> 01:18:53.093
he describes the success of the Freedom of Information Act in the United States
01:18:53.349 --> 01:18:58.660
in enacting some accountability for the injustices perpetuated by the United
01:18:58.660 --> 01:19:01.040
States government in the global war on terror.
01:19:01.981 --> 01:19:05.540
But he attributes those successes not only to the statute itself,
01:19:05.540 --> 01:19:14.119
but also to the people behind it, to those who are very brave to leak documents and risk prosecution.
01:19:15.560 --> 01:19:19.610
The successes in the courts, cooperation from lawmakers.
01:19:19.610 --> 01:19:24.920
There was an ecology that made open government possible. It wasn't one thing.
01:19:24.920 --> 01:19:29.547
It was many things working together as one toward a goal.
01:19:30.140 --> 01:19:34.190
So I think that an open government committee or something to that effect would
01:19:34.190 --> 01:19:37.122
be advantageous because there's a lot of issues.
01:19:37.309 --> 01:19:42.760
I mean, you'd have to do some careful designing for terms of reference to not
01:19:42.760 --> 01:19:46.051
expand into a committee on public life more generally and democracy.
01:19:46.700 --> 01:19:51.357
But we do need some sort of committee to address the issue of government information,
01:19:52.080 --> 01:19:53.940
and the appropriate mechanisms,
01:19:54.880 --> 01:19:59.780
for it to be released, whether that is expectations of the way that meeting
01:19:59.780 --> 01:20:02.460
minutes and agendas are made available for town,
01:20:03.380 --> 01:20:09.240
or municipal councils, whether there's expectations for open data and data based
01:20:09.240 --> 01:20:13.420
requests, which have very different needs processing wise from text based requests,
01:20:13.420 --> 01:20:15.772
which is largely what we think of when we think of records.
01:20:16.724 --> 01:20:20.462
We think about open data. How often is it updated? Do we have any standards about that?
01:20:21.863 --> 01:20:26.870
How do we develop new categories of records for proactive disclosure?
01:20:27.190 --> 01:20:31.283
All of that is really aligned with the mission of freedom of information.
01:20:31.283 --> 01:20:35.483
And when you consider that in a wider scope, I think you can identify some mechanisms
01:20:35.483 --> 01:20:40.473
that might be more appropriate and more efficient to achieve the same informative
01:20:40.473 --> 01:20:44.454
ends than if we were just to think about everything is accessible through FOI.
01:20:44.673 --> 01:20:47.723
So I think that an open government committee not only would make an FOI better,
01:20:47.723 --> 01:20:52.453
but I think when we take a step back and we remember that FOI is one of the
01:20:52.453 --> 01:20:55.680
tools in the open government toolbox, we can really do a lot of good,
01:20:56.723 --> 01:20:59.802
for expanding what we think is possible transparency-wise.
01:21:00.713 --> 01:21:05.903
Regarding this hypothetical committee, who should have a seat at the table?
01:21:05.903 --> 01:21:11.243
And I think also importantly, not only who, but like the experiences that inform
01:21:11.243 --> 01:21:13.310
the work of those that are part of this committee.
01:21:14.303 --> 01:21:19.926
What would be your idea, ideal? What would best serve this open government committee?
01:21:20.658 --> 01:21:24.811
Oh, and that's like the one question I didn't spend a lot of time meditating
01:21:24.811 --> 01:21:28.221
on, which is ironic because everyone calls for a committee and more consultation
01:21:28.221 --> 01:21:30.643
and then gets asked, like, who should be there?
01:21:30.985 --> 01:21:33.789
The people. So this is my moment of that.
01:21:35.078 --> 01:21:40.661
I mean, I feel like the part of the answer could be found if I were to...
01:21:40.701 --> 01:21:46.537
I read recently Democracy's Second Act, published by the University of Toronto Press.
01:21:48.261 --> 01:21:53.241
It's an excellent book. It's by Peter McLeod, a journalist whose name I've unfortunately
01:21:53.241 --> 01:21:55.279
forgotten at the moment.
01:21:56.237 --> 01:22:01.746
But all about civic participation is what needs to come after voting.
01:22:01.984 --> 01:22:04.137
And all of the different ways that that can come about.
01:22:04.480 --> 01:22:10.291
I think people that represent different groups, different associations that
01:22:10.291 --> 01:22:13.414
have an interest in government information are particularly pivotal.
01:22:13.692 --> 01:22:18.521
They're highly influential among different communities that have information-seeking,
01:22:19.401 --> 01:22:21.031
as part of what they engage in.
01:22:21.031 --> 01:22:27.081
So journalists, Women Transforming Cities is a fascinating, fascinating group.
01:22:27.081 --> 01:22:31.745
I really love the work that they're doing ahead of municipal elections in Vancouver.
01:22:32.627 --> 01:22:38.270
I think representatives of political parties, I think, honestly deserve a seat at the table.
01:22:39.041 --> 01:22:42.966
I think, obviously, I mean, journalists, I'm a bit biased, of course,
01:22:43.250 --> 01:22:44.852
but I think journalists belong there.
01:22:45.892 --> 01:22:52.371
I think folks that found FOI, because they were motivated to learn more about
01:22:52.371 --> 01:22:56.801
a particular issue that really mattered to them, whether that is in Vancouver or Vanderhoof,
01:22:58.081 --> 01:23:01.490
I think also belong there. It'd be a little bit difficult, I think, to find that person.
01:23:03.161 --> 01:23:09.881
But we do have to, I think, try to make sure that as diverse of an applicant,
01:23:10.401 --> 01:23:13.091
or an information seeker or someone who has a government information need out
01:23:13.091 --> 01:23:17.748
there is represented there, because I do think that it demands that holistic perspective.
01:23:18.868 --> 01:23:25.740
And, you know, could it examine recurring operational problems between formal
01:23:25.740 --> 01:23:27.274
and legislative reviews?
01:23:28.429 --> 01:23:33.990
Certainly. I think that, like, part of what that committee should hear is updates
01:23:33.990 --> 01:23:37.874
from, you know, from senior staff who are responsible,
01:23:40.650 --> 01:23:45.537
for open government adjacent initiatives or, like, freedom of information.
01:23:46.912 --> 01:23:52.850
I think that they have the opportunity to table concerns about the way implementation
01:23:53.270 --> 01:23:58.240
and public policy implementation is affecting their rights, their entitlements,
01:23:58.240 --> 01:23:59.625
their needs as citizens.
01:24:00.390 --> 01:24:06.480
So absolutely, I think there needs to be no distinction between concern for
01:24:06.480 --> 01:24:08.930
statute and concern for how the statute is implemented.
01:24:09.801 --> 01:24:11.496
It's all about the subjects as one thing.
01:24:12.350 --> 01:24:17.271
And last point on that, how would its recommendations reach the minister and the public?
01:24:20.301 --> 01:24:22.810
It depends on, obviously, how you might want to research it.
01:24:22.810 --> 01:24:23.810
I can't imagine we would—again,
01:24:26.870 --> 01:24:30.220
that book, Democracy Second Act, probably has some insight if I went back into
01:24:30.220 --> 01:24:35.859
it about how the specific ideas get actually communicated back to the minister.
01:24:37.070 --> 01:24:40.170
I think the minister's attendance in those forums, at least on some regular
01:24:40.170 --> 01:24:42.140
basis, would be of a particular benefit.
01:24:43.630 --> 01:24:47.600
That's for certain. Otherwise, I think that really depends on how you design
01:24:47.600 --> 01:24:50.300
the secretariat function of such a group.
01:24:50.300 --> 01:24:54.850
I do think it deserves it. This shouldn't just be a Zoom call where people talk and then walk away.
01:24:54.850 --> 01:24:57.920
I do think that there should be terms of reference meeting minutes.
01:24:57.920 --> 01:25:05.656
There should be some sort of reporting expectations from the functions that are engaged.
01:25:05.865 --> 01:25:07.850
Uh, I do think that there is, um,
01:25:08.471 --> 01:25:12.332
some obligation to consult with the committee when new legislation is being
01:25:12.332 --> 01:25:16.442
brought forward, when there are ideas that have emerged that might affect the
01:25:16.442 --> 01:25:19.000
way that a particular transparency policy is implemented.
01:25:19.255 --> 01:25:23.432
I think that there's a mutual duty on the part of someone who's a part of that
01:25:23.432 --> 01:25:28.937
committee to bring ideas, but also for the public service to bring their ideas forward as well.
01:25:29.223 --> 01:25:32.682
I don't know how to extend this to, I mean, this is all well and good for the
01:25:32.682 --> 01:25:38.081
provincial governments, but I do wonder how to define the relationship between,
01:25:38.612 --> 01:25:40.092
this hypothetical committee and,
01:25:41.372 --> 01:25:46.620
local and regional government, which gets lost in a lot of discussions about,
01:25:47.612 --> 01:25:48.587
freedom of information.
01:25:49.672 --> 01:25:52.785
In our study itself, you were only studying provincial-level organizations.
01:25:53.552 --> 01:26:00.604
But on my drive to Inframir last week, I was thinking, as we passed by every,
01:26:01.732 --> 01:26:04.250
town and village and Municipal Council on our way there.
01:26:06.052 --> 01:26:08.086
How are our recommendations going to affect them?
01:26:08.992 --> 01:26:12.162
And I have less of a clear understanding of that, to be radically honest.
01:26:12.162 --> 01:26:18.052
I think that there is a movement in BC for more accountability in local government.
01:26:18.432 --> 01:26:21.812
It's come with the discussion about an auditor general for local government.
01:26:22.446 --> 01:26:26.752
The ombudsperson for British Columbia has called for a code of conduct for local
01:26:26.752 --> 01:26:31.264
governments, and an integrity commissioner like Ontario has here. I support that.
01:26:32.912 --> 01:26:37.142
But I do wonder how to define the relationship between what we're concerned
01:26:37.142 --> 01:26:39.455
about and these other issues of like,
01:26:40.152 --> 01:26:43.574
you know, municipal politics, which increasingly becomes a question of,
01:26:43.574 --> 01:26:47.392
you know, because the rhetoric of the town council about like how we engage
01:26:47.392 --> 01:26:51.412
in public life, which could easily become a conversation about social media if we're not careful.
01:26:51.412 --> 01:26:59.982
So the committee idea, while I believe in it, there's much work to be done in
01:26:59.982 --> 01:27:00.974
how to make this effective.
01:27:01.793 --> 01:27:05.232
Yeah, and I think this is all a work in progress. And I think this discussion
01:27:05.232 --> 01:27:08.891
and this larger project that we're interviewing you about is,
01:27:09.350 --> 01:27:14.139
at the very least, I hope it provokes movement in the right direction for these types of things.
01:27:14.615 --> 01:27:17.302
So yeah, I think what you've been doing is a huge contribution.
01:27:17.302 --> 01:27:21.422
And as has been mentioned at least a couple times now, or at least once,
01:27:21.422 --> 01:27:27.442
which is that this project took four years and involved an unusually large and
01:27:27.442 --> 01:27:29.023
fragmented body of records.
01:27:29.510 --> 01:27:33.062
So, last question before we get to the conclusion of this, Spencer,
01:27:33.062 --> 01:27:35.442
you know, what surprised you most about this work?
01:27:36.465 --> 01:27:39.518
And what did the evidence cause you to reconsider?
01:27:41.103 --> 01:27:45.792
I think the thing that surprised me most was, like, I mean, every researcher
01:27:45.792 --> 01:27:49.868
is probably surprised by their data when they're a new researcher, but I...
01:27:51.041 --> 01:27:54.804
I had never worked, like I said, in a large organization before.
01:27:55.564 --> 01:28:01.224
Truly, I had this idea of government. It's like every document comes in a letterhead,
01:28:01.784 --> 01:28:04.363
is typed consistent to one typeface.
01:28:05.284 --> 01:28:09.308
It's pretty, it's deliberate, it's authoritative, it has a visual rhetoric to it.
01:28:09.622 --> 01:28:13.944
And I was not expecting to get PowerPoints and screenshots of,
01:28:16.164 --> 01:28:20.534
OneNote entries, and that be the defining bureaucratic literature of 21st century
01:28:20.534 --> 01:28:22.091
British Columbia public administration.
01:28:22.300 --> 01:28:28.924
The idea that when we asked for policies and that word.
01:28:31.244 --> 01:28:39.554
Affected the transaction of a PowerPoint presentation in response was so enlightening
01:28:39.554 --> 01:28:43.124
and surprising and pushed me to think about,
01:28:44.144 --> 01:28:48.834
well beyond what I think Buckland was originally talking about in this book,
01:28:48.834 --> 01:28:50.059
Information and Society,
01:28:50.944 --> 01:28:54.934
which I read at the very beginning of, like, the same month Jason gave me the
01:28:54.934 --> 01:28:59.028
project, I was assigned the first chapter of this for Info 100 at UBC,
01:28:59.784 --> 01:29:03.376
and I ended up reading the whole thing a few months later.
01:29:04.284 --> 01:29:09.074
But, like, I think that's what, like, all of it, like, methodologically and
01:29:09.074 --> 01:29:13.272
substantively comes down to the way we think about documents in politics.
01:29:13.614 --> 01:29:16.464
And I think that my...
01:29:16.984 --> 01:29:20.110
I had very distant expectations.
01:29:23.804 --> 01:29:30.641
Relative to what I actually got. And I feel like I'm constantly having to re-evaluate,
01:29:32.264 --> 01:29:36.574
whether or not we need to go back to some sort of fictitious golden era of documentation,
01:29:36.574 --> 01:29:38.773
whether that's worth it, whether that's holding things back,
01:29:39.650 --> 01:29:43.011
how that relates to other concepts like innovation and justice.
01:29:43.804 --> 01:29:49.019
But I think truly the variety of documentation I encountered I was not expecting at all.
01:29:49.872 --> 01:29:54.074
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so Spencer, we are nearing the end. We're going to do
01:29:54.074 --> 01:29:58.168
a quick round of questions. I'm going to ask each of you a question.
01:29:59.439 --> 01:30:03.014
I'm going to go with you first, Spencer. Brief question here.
01:30:03.014 --> 01:30:06.857
You know, what is the one finding, the thing that listeners should remember?
01:30:07.954 --> 01:30:10.553
Yeah, what is the one finding that listeners should remember?
01:30:11.366 --> 01:30:16.834
Make a document true to your intentions that is that is that is the the finding uh that i think,
01:30:17.653 --> 01:30:22.194
uh everyone regardless of whether you wherever you work wherever wherever there
01:30:22.194 --> 01:30:25.074
there are you are making decisions about another person whenever you commit
01:30:25.074 --> 01:30:29.810
something to writing make sure it reflects your intentions that's the takeaway for me.
01:30:29.954 --> 01:30:37.234
That's beautiful yeah uh jason so what is the first practical action fiba wants
01:30:37.234 --> 01:30:39.045
government to take from all this
01:30:40.206 --> 01:30:43.934
I think the first practical action we want government to take about all of this
01:30:43.934 --> 01:30:47.422
is to read and review the report and do more than just talk about it.
01:30:47.770 --> 01:30:51.924
We want them to address the current state of affairs that is really unsatisfactory
01:30:51.924 --> 01:30:56.552
right now and act proactively to move public bodies to improve their transparency,
01:30:56.767 --> 01:31:01.450
improve accountability, and restore the public trust that is constantly being eroded.
01:31:01.799 --> 01:31:06.474
Our preliminary report indicated a whole bunch of discussion guides to support
01:31:06.474 --> 01:31:07.946
those types of considerations.
01:31:08.294 --> 01:31:12.704
And there's links to all of this material on our website in the show notes here
01:31:12.704 --> 01:31:16.784
there's lots of ability for people to do that but the key thing is read and
01:31:16.784 --> 01:31:20.594
review the report to start and then do more than just talk about it by taking
01:31:20.594 --> 01:31:22.673
action to act on some of those recommendations
01:31:23.411 --> 01:31:27.324
Absolutely yeah so we're going to include references and links to that in the
01:31:27.324 --> 01:31:30.904
show notes and everyone can do the proper research that they want they want
01:31:30.904 --> 01:31:33.117
to follow up on all the things that we've been discussing today.
01:31:34.194 --> 01:31:40.194
Mike, last question for you, sir. Why should someone who has never filed an
01:31:40.194 --> 01:31:43.055
FOI request care about this report?
01:31:44.708 --> 01:31:48.896
It's a good question, Patrick. Well, you know, I was reflecting on this.
01:31:49.896 --> 01:31:53.586
I think, first off, you don't need to read the report to file an FOI request.
01:31:53.586 --> 01:31:56.829
That's very important. People can file a FOI request without doing so.
01:31:57.218 --> 01:32:01.616
But what's documented in the report, the challenges that are found,
01:32:01.616 --> 01:32:07.666
the recommendations, I think they're very, actually very close to the experiences of new requesters.
01:32:08.816 --> 01:32:13.496
The kinds of things that people who've filed their first FOI requests come to
01:32:13.496 --> 01:32:17.266
FIPA about, the challenges they encounter, are very much the kinds of challenges
01:32:17.266 --> 01:32:18.396
that are documented in the report.
01:32:18.396 --> 01:32:21.896
So we say, well, you can't disclose what you can't find.
01:32:21.896 --> 01:32:25.126
This is about retrieval. A lot of people are frustrated because they know,
01:32:25.126 --> 01:32:30.316
in general, that information that meets their needs exists, but it doesn't come
01:32:30.316 --> 01:32:31.836
back to them in an FOI request.
01:32:31.836 --> 01:32:35.386
And that could be because there's a lack of skill in terms of finding it or
01:32:35.386 --> 01:32:41.006
a lack of resources, or proper archival practices, or as we've talked about,
01:32:41.006 --> 01:32:42.548
there's just a lack of documentation.
01:32:42.948 --> 01:32:47.099
So that's a core frustration of the average FOI user.
01:32:47.290 --> 01:32:52.006
Average FOI user is not someone who's going to be experienced with the metrics,
01:32:52.006 --> 01:32:56.746
with the timelines and deemed refusal rates and so on. They're looking for records
01:32:56.746 --> 01:32:58.899
that are meaningful to them for a variety of reasons.
01:32:59.358 --> 01:33:03.386
So I think it's a very kind of close to home report in that way.
01:33:03.890 --> 01:33:08.166
And also this notion of correctness as a standard. I mean, we have such an orientation
01:33:08.166 --> 01:33:11.256
towards quantitative benchmarking for everything, right? You got to measure
01:33:11.256 --> 01:33:14.156
it. You got to have, everyone's got bio trackers on, everyone's measuring and
01:33:14.156 --> 01:33:15.298
quantifying everything.
01:33:15.605 --> 01:33:19.226
And so the efficiency and effectiveness of government institutions and practices
01:33:19.226 --> 01:33:22.556
also becomes very much quantified. And it's about the measurements and the metrics
01:33:22.556 --> 01:33:23.535
and the graphs and the charts.
01:33:24.657 --> 01:33:29.389
But not really for the FOI user, not for the person who's looking to file their first FOI request.
01:33:29.389 --> 01:33:32.499
They just want the damn records. So the correctness emphasis there,
01:33:32.499 --> 01:33:36.789
I think, is very much in line with that lived experience of the requester.
01:33:36.789 --> 01:33:40.959
And in some ways, I would argue that a lot of the traditional literature on
01:33:40.959 --> 01:33:47.409
what's wrong with FOI systems sometimes misses out on those really core things
01:33:47.409 --> 01:33:48.429
that are pretty close to home.
01:33:48.429 --> 01:33:51.289
So that's what I would say, is that this, for people who are frustrated with
01:33:51.289 --> 01:33:55.709
the FOI process, or people who are looking to use it, the implementation of
01:33:55.709 --> 01:33:58.115
these recommendations, I think, would make a difference, a real difference.
01:33:59.666 --> 01:34:04.118
Yeah, I think in sum, this project, this report is illuminating,
01:34:04.728 --> 01:34:07.902
helps clarify some issues that people may have.
01:34:09.911 --> 01:34:13.719
Well, I just want to say in sum here This has been a really robust discussion
01:34:13.719 --> 01:34:18.679
And I really want to thank all of you for your time today And especially to
01:34:18.679 --> 01:34:23.141
you, Spencer, for four years of work You did some incredible work here
01:34:24.119 --> 01:34:28.519
And it's really a one-of-a-kind thing So again, I not only feel,
01:34:28.519 --> 01:34:32.039
but I think I know That it's going to produce some very fruitful Not only discussions,
01:34:32.039 --> 01:34:35.619
but movement as well In the right direction So,
01:34:36.179 --> 01:34:40.073
Spencer, thank you so much for joining us all here today. Thank you.
01:34:45.881 --> 01:34:50.421
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