OTTAWA—A federal watchdog has handed Canada Post and the CBC failing grades for dragging their feet on answering information requests from the public.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault branded the post office with red-alert status Thursday for refusing to respond to many requests filed under the Access to Information Act.

Canada’s public broadcaster fared only slightly better, receiving an F on its report card.

Legault also called for improvements to the access law itself, saying the Conservative government created special exemptions that complicated matters when it brought Canada Post, the CBC and other Crown agencies under the legislation four years ago.

The access law allows people who pay $5 to seek a variety of federal files — from briefing notes and expense reports to correspondence and internal audits.

Canada Post did not answer almost three-quarters of the applications it received in 2009-10 within specified deadlines — “one of the worst rates” the information czar has seen since starting to publish report cards over a decade ago.

It took an average of 190 days for Canada Post to answer a request, even though applications are supposed to be completed within 30 days unless there are good reasons for an extension.

“These numbers are absolutely unacceptable,” Legault told a news conference.

The CBC failed to answer almost 60 per cent of the requests it received last year within the proper timelines. It took an average of 158 days to respond.

An initial flood of requests in the first few months CBC became subject to the access law continues to reverberate at the corporation, Legault said. However, there are promising signs of improvement that bode well for the future, she added.

In statements Thursday, both the broadcaster and the post office said they would strive to do better.

As an ombudsman for users of the law, Legault periodically examines whether agencies are living up to their legal obligations of transparency.

She looked at eight institutions — Crown corporations or agents of Parliament — that became subject to the access law in 2007 as a result of the Federal Accountability Act. They were chosen because the commissioner had received five or more complaints about them during the time they’ve been covered by the access law.

Six performed better than average, with four — the National Arts Centre, the auditor general, the privacy commissioner and the information commissioner’s office — receiving an A grade. To ensure independence, the information commissioner was examined by a third party.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. earned a B-plus, while Via Rail got a B.

Legault said that while the Accountability Act expanded coverage of the access law, it also increased the number of special exemptions that allow agencies to withhold files. It means Crown corporations and parliamentary agents are releasing “less information” than their federal counterparts, such as the major departments long subject to the access regime, Legault said.

“This has resulted in limited benefits for transparency, despite the intentions of the government when it introduced these changes.”

For example, while the new institutions embraced by the law accounted for about two per cent of all access requests the government received in 2009-10, they were the subject of nearly 12 per cent of the complaints the commissioner received that year.

Access-to-information disputes involving CBC and Canada Post have landed in the Federal Court.

New Democrat MP Bill Siksay said Legault’s analysis adds to the push for a complete overhaul of the access law, which hasn’t changed much since its inception in 1983.

“A new access-to-information law is long overdue, and this is just further evidence of that,” he said. “We need to have a central commitment to openness, to access to information, to proactive disclosure — not a regime that’s built on exceptions and exemptions and carve-outs.”

Last April, Legault said federal delays in answering requests are getting worse and threaten to scuttle the right to know. She urged government agencies to take “immediate steps” to curb the lollygagging.

At that time, 13 of the two dozen key departments Legault’s office studied received below-average marks.

She said Thursday that progress reports from the agencies point to “numerous positive developments,” with institutions finding new resources to handle requests and putting in place better procedures.