ETHI Committee Report

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APPENDIX

COMBINED CHRONOLOGY

This table is based on documentation that was provided to the Committee by officials from DFAIT. It lists in chronological order some of the key events that occurred in relation to the four access to information requests that were made relating to the report Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights.

Date	Action
January 29, 2007	Request 466 (Attaran) received in the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division (DCP) of DFAIT.
February 16, 2007	Minister’s Office/Josée Lessard asked to see proposed release package for request 466; DCP/Serge Lebel tagged MINA ALERT in tracking system
February 28, 2007	Draft extension letter to applicant was inadvertently not sent. (Usually extensions are signed by Team Leader, but DCP was in the middle of a process change and miscommunication between DCP Analyst and Team Leader resulted in letter not sent.) Original still on file.
March 1, 2007	Request 466 is in a deemed refusal situation (LATE).
March 13, 2007	Request 604 (Esau) received in the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division (DCP) of DFAIT.
March 22, 2007	Response letter sent to Mr. Esau re: request 605 stating: Please be advised that Canada does not produce an annual human rights report analogous to the reports produced by, for example, the United States or the United Kingdom. Therefore no such report on human rights performance in other countries exist.
March 29, 2007	Request 649 (Attaran) received in the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division (DCP).
April 4, 2007	Professor Attaran advised DCP that he was filing a delay complaint to the Information Commissioner of Canada (OIC) re: request 466. He also alleges that the information is being suppressed for political reasons.
April 5, 2007	E-mail from Mr. Esau re: request 605 stating: I’m just reviewing the response you sent … I’m researching human rights issues for an article for the Globe and Mail, and I’m hearing from other sources that DFAIT does in fact produce human rights reports. I just want to confirm DFAIT’s position on this — that human rights reports DO NOT exist — and that my request was not interpreted with undue narrowness by DFAIT … Accordingly, if the records do exist, but I failed to use the precise title of the report(s), please let me know.
April 5, 2007	DCP sends follow-up e-mail to Mr. Esau re: request 605 from ATIP analyst stating: [A]s far as I can see, we have responded to the wording of your request. However, if there has been some misinterpretation of the wording or misunderstanding in what you are requesting, please provide me with more information that I may in turn provide it to the responsible division.
April 5, 2007	DCP receives follow-up e-mail from Mr. Esau re: request 605 stating: Perhaps I tried to be too specific — in the genuine interests of being helpful — by using the words “annual or semi-annual” … I am assuming that every year there is some kind of “state-of-the-world” summary or report prepared for the Minister or interested parties or parliament that describes progress and problems with human rights in various part of the world. I understood this assessment included a section/chapter/case summary entitled “Afghanistan-2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights,” for example, and that there are section/accounts dealing with China, Russia, Iran, etc. I wasn’t even aware there was an entire Division for human rights at DFAIT. Does that organization not regularly report its perspectives/concerns/findings for use by decision-makers?
April 10, 2007	Director of Human Rights Division (GHH) re-confirmed via e‑mail that DFAIT does not produce “annual” or “semi-annual” reports on human rights performances in other countries like the Americans and the British do. The Division does produce reports following certain situations that may develop in individual countries (i.e., Afghanistan or Haiti). If the requester wants the Division to search for each report, it would take “hundreds” of hours to locate all the reports. This information was e-mailed to Mr. Esau (re: request 605) by DCP.
April 11, 2007	Mr. Esau sent e-mail asking DCP analyst to confirm the key points mentioned re: request 605 so that he could pass them along to his editor: 1. DFAIT does not produce an annual or semi-annual report that summarizes human rights trends or findings in countries around the world. 2. DFAIT only produces reports on a “situational” basis from time to time, which deal with one country at a time. 3. It would take more than 100 hours of search time to obtain all these individual reports produced over the past year.
April 11, 2007	E-mail from DCP analyst to requester confirming the correctness in all points re: request 605, and adding that the search fees could be reduced if he provides specific countries of interest. The requester thanked the analyst.
April 17, 2007	E-mail to Professor Attaran from the DCP Director/Jocelyne Sabourin re: request 466 providing a commitment date and status on various other active files.
April 17, 2007	Proposed release package on request 466 sent to Minister’s Office/Alain Latulippe, due date is April 20, 2007.
April 17, 2007	DCP Director/Jocelyne Sabourin signs off letter to Professor Attaran re: request 649, confirming that these records are being processed under his previous file and release is being sent.
April 17, 2007	Director/Jocelyne Sabourin sent e-mail to Professor Attaran re: request 649 with electronic copy of response letter, which was also sent in regular mail.
April 23, 2007	Response to request 466 with CDROM provided to the Professor Attaran by hand at 15:00, letter signed by DCP/Jocelyne Sabourin.
April 23, 2007	Professor Attaran asks via e-mail to Director/Jocelyne Sabourin that DFAIT reconsider the use of exemptions re: request 466.
April 24, 2007	E-mail to Professor Attaran from Director, DCP/Jocelyne Sabourin will examine the use of Section 15 re: request 466.
April 24, 2007	E-mail to Professor Attaran from DCP/Jocelyne Sabourin confirming that DFAIT will maintain the exemptions re: request 466.
April 25, 2007	Globe and Mail article: What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know.
May 15, 2007	Letter re: request 604 signed by Director, DCP/Jocelyne Sabourin.
May 16, 2007	Requester (Esau) called DCP for status of file # 604.
May 16, 2007	Response to 604 mailed to Mr. Esau with CD stamped with A‑2006-00466: Enclosed on CD Rom, is the records that respond to your request as well as those for the years 2002 to 2005. Please note that some of the information contained in the documents has been exempted under section 13(1), 15(1), 17, 21(1)(a) and 21(1)(b) of the Act.
May 17, 2007	Mr. Esau and Professor Attaran appear before House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
May 19, 2007	Director, DCP/Jocelyne Sabourin received call from requester (Esau) re: 604; advised that the response had been mailed, that it was exactly the same information/exemptions as the previous release under A-2006-00466, and that if he has not received to please call and we will send another copy.
May 29, 2007	Jocelyne Sabourin and Lillian Thomsen appear before House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.