Establishing a duty to document: the foundation for access to information.

• Author: Kosciejew, Marc
• Position: GOVERNMENT RECORDS

Access to information is a bedrock principle of democratic governments and their public agencies and entities. It helps ensure that democratic governments are, and remain, accessible, open, and transparent to their citizens, and it helps enable citizens to more fully engage with, monitor, and hold them to account. Access to information depends upon these public institutions to document their activities and decisions. When they do not, then the citizens' right of access is ultimately denied.

Public accountability and trust, in addition to institutional memory and the historical record, are undermined without the creation of appropriate records. Establishing and enforcing a duty to document promotes accountability, openness, transparency, good governance, and public trust in public institutions.

This article begins a discussion on the concept and practice of a duty to document. It presents a case study of Canada where various federal, provincial, and territorial information and privacy commissioners, along with other public officials, have recommended that a duty to document be enshrined in access-to-information legislation and related statutes and regulations.

The article's main aim is to help illuminate the importance and implications of a duty to document in both access laws and records and information management (RIM) policies to help ensure accountability, transparency, and trust for good governance practices.

A Growing Movement

Across Canada, calls are increasing for the inclusion and implementation of a duty to document in relevant access legislation. For example, since the early 1990s, federal information commissioners have recommended a legislated duty to document in diverse venues, including their offices' annual reports, Access to Information Act reviews, and presentations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics.

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Over the past couple of years, moreover, federal, provincial, and territorial information and privacy commissioners have made similar recommendations. In 2013, for instance, the federal information and privacy commissioners issued a joint statement urging Ottawa to establish a legislated duty to document for all public institutions to record their actions and decisions. In 2015 in British Columbia, the information commissioner's submission to the provincial special committee reviewing the province's access and privacy laws urged that government to impose a duty to document. Similarly, that same year, committees reviewing provincial access and privacy laws in Quebec and in Newfoundland and Labrador called on their respective governments to impose duty-to-document provisions.

A Documentary Obligation

The Canadian federal Access to Information Act establishes access rights to public records of the federal government and its...