Nearly 860 million pages of historical records held by Library and Archives Canada remain inaccessible to the public, according to internal federal documents obtained by Blacklock's Reporter.

An April 21 briefing note, Comprehensive Expenditure Review, revealed an estimated 78% of the federal archives remain closed, leaving only 22% to 25% of records accessible to Canadians either online or in person.

“Seventy-eight percent of records, 860 million pages, are still inaccessible, underscoring the need for continued effort and reform,” said the note, according to Blacklock's.

Officials blamed the enormous backlog partly on the labour-intensive process of retrieving and digitizing paper records.

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“Boxes must be physically retrieved from storage and transported from one building to another,” managers wrote.

Staff must then inspect pages, remove paper clips and staples, determine which scanning equipment to use and review digitized files for legibility. Fragile or mould-damaged documents can require conservation work, while classified records create additional complications.

The problem isn't new.

A 2021 internal evaluation found Library and Archives Canada's backlog of private archival material stretched an estimated eight kilometres of cartons, with staff acknowledging the material was unavailable to researchers.

The Auditor General raised similar concerns more than a decade ago.

A 2014 audit found Library and Archives Canada was warehousing boxes without even processing them to determine exactly what they contained or whether the records were historically significant.

“Until the boxes are processed Library and Archives Canada will not know what is in them,” auditors wrote.

Among the warehoused material were 24,000 Department of National Defence records, some dating as far back as the Boer War, along with another 5,200 cartons from the Department of Justice.