RÉSUMÉ: De récents changements dans des publications parlementaires ont été grandement le fait de deux forces convergentes: les restrictions financières et la nouvelle technologie. Certains, à Ottawa, voient cette dernière comme un moyen de contrôler les dépenses en substituant des formats électroniques aux imprimés, comme la façon la plus rentable de distribuer de l'information gouvernementale. Mais voici la question qui se pose : "Est-ce que les bibliothèques et le grand public vont avoir un plus grand accès ou non à l'information gouvernementale à la suite de ces changements?"
Change is the name of the game in Ottawa these days. At no time in recent history have there been more extensive changes in the structure and organization of the Government of Canada than in the four months following the swearing in of Kim Campbell as Prime Minister on June 25, 1993. These changes were still in the process of being implemented when the newly elected Liberal Government of Prime Minister Jean Chré tien took office on November 4, 1993. As the 35th Parliament began its first session on January 17, 1994, the new government introduced changes of its own, including changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.
The changes to parliamentary papers began last summer. In September 1993, the Department of Justice notified subscribers that Part III of The Canada Gazette, which began publication in 1978, would no longer be published, principally because of the high cost of printing. Also, with the creation of the "Assented to" Acts service in February 1990 and the publication of the statutes on an annual basis, the need for Part III of The Canada Gazette was lessened. In 1994, the "Table of Public Statutes from 1907 to Date" and the "Table of Acts and Responsible Ministers," formerly published in Part III, began to appear in a new publication to be issued thrice yearly by the Department of Justice. The "Table of Public Statutes" will also continue to be published in the annual bound volumes of the Statutes of Canada.
A major change affecting parliamentary papers is the decision to cease binding Hansard, a practice that dates back to Confederation. In response to financial constraints, the Senate decided that, effective with the 34th Parliament (1988-1993), it would no longer produce bound revised Debates. A cumulative index on microfiche to the Senate Debates is being prepared to cover the 34th Parliament but it is not clear whether the Senate will continue to supply an index to its Hansard in future. Following the lead of the Senate, the House of Commons has decided that, starting with the 35th Parliament, it will cease publication of its bound revised Debates but it will continue to produce a revised cumulative index to them. As a result of these decisions, in 1994 the Depository Services Program advised depository libraries to conserve their daily debates for both the Senate (starting with the 34th Parliament) and the House of Commons (starting with the 35th Parliament). This means that depository libraries will now be responsible for binding their own copies of Hansard.
Other changes to parliamentary papers are in the works. At its meetings of March 22 and 24, 1994, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (formerly known as House Management) made a number of important recommendations including the following:
If approved, the effect of these recommendations will be to curtail access to certain committee information previously available to Canadians by no longer printing the evidence of committee meetings unless witnesses have appeared, by no longer printing briefs and submissions of committees prepared by witnesses, and by limiting the number of copies of committee Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence. Although it seems that this latter limitation will not affect the distribution of copies to depository libraries, the overall impact of the changes will be to curtail access to information on how decisions on public policy issues of relevance and importance to all Canadians are debated and decided on in committee.
Other changes are impacting on the distribution of parliamentary papers. Since the opening of the 1st session of the 35th Parliament, the House of Commons has been offering online access to the electronic text of Hansard debates to five off-Hill government departments and plans to extend this service to other government departments this fall.
The Senate is planning a pilot project to make its debates available online to several Senate offices and proposes to go Hill-wide by the fall of 1994. In the meantime, the Senate is planning to become the first legislature in Canada to offer general information, committee schedules and, eventually, transcripts of proceedings online free of charge through National Capital Region FreeNet, a publicly accessible computer network which in turn is part of Internet.
At present, the pilot projects to make Hansard available online involve comparatively straightforward text. However, both the House and the Senate are considering using a software program called WorldView Press (published by Interleaf Canada Inc.) which offers users a computerized display similar to the hard copies now being printed. WorldView allows the user to refer to page numbers associated with the paper version of Hansard.
The Canada Communications Group - Publishing (CCG-P) is working with the House of Commons on how best to provide access to the electronic Hansard and other products through the Depository Services Program (DSP). When completed, an internal marketing study currently under way should give the DSP a better sense of the formats required to meet the needs of the depository community for access to House of Commons information.
The CCG-P plans to make available to the public for a price CD-ROM versions of Hansard for the 33rd and 34th Parliaments plus an index to all debates since 1968. In the meantime, in March 1994, thirty-seven libraries across the country received test versions of these CD-ROMs. The Hansard CD-ROM package is comprised of fourteen CDs. Two CDs (one English, one French) make up the Index to Hansard from 1968 to 1993, which includes the 28th to the 34th Parliaments, and is fully searchable. The remaining twelve CDs (six English, six French) cover the 33rd and 34th Parliament from 1984 to 1993. These latter CDs, which are linked to the Index, provide viewing and printing capabilities only. According to CCG-P, Hansard on CD-ROM "is intended to supplement the parliamentary documents currently available in print form" and user experimentation is encouraged. The pilot project will run until the end of November 1994 and participants will be required to complete a formal evaluation of the trial by mid-December.
In other electronic developments on Parliament Hill, on March 7, 1994, the House Standing Committee on Human Resources Development introduced video teleconferencing to its proceedings, the first time this has been done by a parliamentary committee in Canada. Committee members saw and heard the testimony of witnesses via video teleconferencing from Sarnia at its morning sitting and from Vancouver at its evening sitting while, at its afternoon sitting, it heard from witnesses appearing in person in Ottawa. The evidence of the meetings was published in full in the committee's Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence. Video conferencing is expected to save committees tens of thousands of dollars in paying travel, accommodation and meal expenses for witnesses to appear before them in Ottawa as well as cutting down on committee travel generally.
The recent changes in parliamentary publishing have been driven largely by the two converging forces: financial constraints and the new technology. Some in Ottawa see the new technology as a means of controlling expenditures by substituting electronic formats for print format (which they seem to believe can be eliminated as a consequence) as the principal and most cost-efficient means of distribution of government information. But the question remains as to the effect of these changes at the grass roots. Will libraries and the general public have greater or less access to government information as a result of such changes? And who on Parliament Hill is considering the impact of these changes from the standpoint of non-parliamentary users? As parliamentary cost-cutting continues and as new technology is applied, library associations and associations of other information professionals will continue to have a vital role to play as advocates for improved public access to government information.