Privy Council Office: The fertility rate at the centre of governmentRefused by silence
4 Sept 2026 · Access to Information Act · A-2026-00580
11 Sept: file opened; fee waiver refused without reasons; the Office states the time for an answer has not begun. 5 Oct, the due date, passed without an answer.
Access to Information request with fee waiver — the fertility rate at the centre of government
Hello,
This is a request under the Access to Information Act, together with an application for a waiver of the application fee under subsection 11(2).
Period for the record search: 1 January 2019 to the date this request is processed.
I request the following records.
1. Every briefing note or analysis prepared for the Prime Minister or for the Clerk of the Privy Council addressing the decline in the total fertility rate, population ageing, or the size of future birth cohorts.
2. Every record in which immigration is identified as the federal response to the decline in the total fertility rate or to population ageing, including any record weighing that response against measures directed at the number of births.
3. Every record of a Deputy Minister committee, a policy committee, or an interdepartmental working group at which the fertility rate or population ageing was on the agenda, including agendas, decks and records of decision.
4. Every record concerning the coordination between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, the Department of Finance Canada and Statistics Canada on the demographic consequences of the fertility rate.
5. Every record identifying the official or unit responsible within the federal government for the fertility rate as a policy question. If no official or unit holds that responsibility, provide the record confirming that.
Limit the search to briefing notes, analyses, decks, agendas, records of decision and internal correspondence. Exclude media monitoring, news clippings and material already published on your website.
If no records answer a numbered item, say so expressly, item by item.
Section 69. Where a record is withheld as a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, identify each record withheld by date, type and originating institution, and state the paragraph of subsection 69(1) relied on. Where a record falls within subsection 69(3), release it.
Fee waiver. I receive social assistance under the Ontario Works Act and have no discretionary income. The fee is a real barrier to me and is none to the institution. The records concern whether the centre of the federal government has ever decided anything about the birth rate, and the public interest in that does not shrink because I cannot pay for it. Waive the application fee under subsection 11(2) and give the decision in writing. If the waiver is refused, give the reasons in writing with the name of the official who decided and the criteria applied.
Respectfully,
Danilo Dzyuban