The precedent the government is setting by retroactively exempting long gun registry data from Canada’s access law could be used to cover up the paper trail in scandals like the one involving suspended Conservative Senator Mike Duffy, Canada’s access to information watchdog suggested Monday.

Testifying before Parliament’s Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee, NDP MP Pat Martin asked Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault whether a clause Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has slipped into the budget information bill currently before Parliament could allow it to retroactively deal with politically embarrassing actions.

“Do you believe it offends the rule of natural justice and the rule of law to contemplate passing legislation that affects people retroactively?” Martin asked. “Could we not do the same thing with the Mike Duffy affair and make it okay to give a sitting senator a $90,000 cheque?”

“I think that this retroactive application and the retroactive stripping of the application of the Access to Information Act is a perilous precedent,” Legault replied. “I think it could be used in any other file, of course. It could be used in any of our further investigations. We are pursuing all avenues possible.”

Legault said the retroactive provisions have a sweeping effect and go back to October 2011, before the long gun registry act was in force.

“It nullifies the request of the complainant in this case, it nullifies all of my investigation, it nullifies all of the use of the former powers and the documents that we obtained through them, it nullifies the application we made to the Federal Court and it nullifies any potential administrative, civil or criminal liability of any of the actors involved.”

Legault said her office is also looking into whether the provision in the Budget Implementation Act is unconstitutional.

Speaking later to reporters, however, Legault refused to reveal what exactly her office plans to do next.

“When the next steps are ready, you will be made aware of it,” she promised. “Right now we’re looking at all the options.”

Legault’s comments come as Parliament is studying the government’s 167-page budget implementation bill, which includes several provisions that have nothing to do with the budget that Finance Minister Joe Oliver tabled last month.

One provision slipped into the omnibus bill amends the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act to ensure that the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act do not apply to long-gun registry records the Conservatives want to destroy – records the Quebec government went to court unsuccessfully to keep.

Quebec has vowed to create its own provincial long-gun registry.

The provision also exempts government officials from any civil or criminal liability for destroying the long gun registry records.

Exceptionally, however, they have also backdated the exemption.

“The non-application of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act is retroactive to October 25, 2011, the day on which the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act was introduced into Parliament.”

Days after the provision was unveiled, Legault tabled a special report in Parliament, revealing that in March she had recommended that charges be laid against the RCMP for destroying long gun registry records that were part of an access to information request and an investigation by her office, despite a promise that they would be preserved.

Legault’s comments came as she and other officers of Parliament appeared before the committee to answer questions about their spending estimates for the coming year.

Like the other officers of Parliament, Legault said it is getting harder and harder for her office to do its job with the budget cuts imposed by the government. She said her pleas for more money have been ignored.

Currently, the information commissioner’s office has a backlog of 2,233 complaints, she said, to an audible reaction by one committee member.

“The most immediate impact of our financial situation has been longer wait times for complainants,” she told the committee. “There is currently an overall delay of about five months before a file gets assigned to an investigator. For the more serious complaints, the refusal complaints alone, which comprise about 87 per cent of my inventory, the delay before I can assign a file is seven months.

“This situation will continue and is only getting worse as no new source of funds was granted to my office through the most recent budget exercise.”

Speaking later with reporters, Legault said her office gets more complaints each year than it manages to resolve.

“Without additional people, we will never clear this backlog.”

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