Canada to introduce online information access project

Canada, 10th October: Canada has plans to introduce a pilot program for enabling online access to information.

This initiative by Canadian government will offer Canadian citizens among others to just go online for requesting access to internal documents.’

Canada's online portal—Canada will officially launch this online project for information access early next year. The online portal will forward requests to the related department. So, the access-to-information initiative, regarded to be the first ever of its kind, will facilitate Canadian citizens and others to pay fees and keep a track of their file’s processing via the internet.

Canada immigration department CIC-Citizenship and Immigration Canada-is behind the online portal proposal.

Already, CIC offers facility of online credit-card payments under access-to-information online process.

Suzanne Legault says the process of implementing an online project for an efficient and an improved access to information requests is overdue since Canadians are making use of the internet for making payments and accessing government services.

The new initiative to be launched next year will be another feather in the cap of Citizenship and Immigration Canada and will bring it in line with other nations providing online information access including the US and Mexico.

Details of access-to-information online portal—The one-stop applications system will initially will have three departments. However, in the period of three to four years, it will include almost all federal institutes and agencies.

It will include receiver general buy button enabling private-sector clients to make online payment (through the interac payment process and credit cards) for federal services and goods.

The requestor will need to use either any appropriate credit card along with a secure link for online submission of requests for Access to Information and Privacy.

And the project enabling online access to information will make the present process more efficient and transparent, thereby reducing increasing backlogs.

The new digitalized system will replace the current access-to-information act dating back to 1982 by putting to an end paper forms, postage stamps and paper cheques.

According to official spokesperson of Treasury Board, Theresa Knowles, CIC has been selected for this online portal due to its experience and expertise with online payments. The effort will be the result of a joint collaboration between Shared Services Canada, CIC and the Treasury Board Secretariat.