University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran blasts Information Commissioner Robert Marleau's proposed "reforms."

From the June 10 Globe and Mail:

How is it that a right to access information in 30 days can turn into a wait of years? Simply put, the federal government is exploiting a loophole.

Under the act, no Canadian who believes he or she has been wrongfully denied information by the government may apply to the courts for a remedy, unless he or she first complains to the Information Commissioner, who must then carry out an investigation before any court action can proceed. Earlier this decade, such investigations were said to take 30-120 days, but Mr. Marleau is letting complaints languish for months or years.

The commissioner is frank: "I can tell you that I have and will have a bias against going to court," he testified to Parliament, shortly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked him to take the job. "It usually costs the taxpayer a lot of money and the outcomes are typically unpredictable." By dolorously sifting through the 2,318 public complaints in his queue, Mr. Marleau stalls those complainants from reaching court and keeps information secret - which suits his "bias" and delights the government, too.

The latest statistics show Robert Marleau's working style is more lapdog than watchdog. Not only is he obstructing citizens from having their day in court, but in his first full year in the job, he initiated zero court cases against government secrecy. He also initiated zero complaints against government departments that have systemic problems meeting their access to information obligations. By comparison, a year earlier, during which his predecessor mostly ran the office, there were 393 complaints of the systemic kind.

Instead of dealing with these issues, Mr. Marleau has been busy trying to revamp the system, to make it more exclusive and consensual, and less answerable to ordinary people.

Attaran also blasted Marleau's "triage" proposal, which would fast-track ATI requests from journos and parliamentarians -- and leave everyone else at the stop waiting for the next ATI bus.

He also suggested Parliament might want to relieve Mr. Marleau of his responsibilities.