Information & Ethics committee  If that's what I'm here to do, to testify on these sorts of questions—and I am not absolutely sure that's why I'm here—I am prepared to make a comment. That is, in the course of information that we get around the world from many, many sources, there will be information that comes into the department, some of which will go to the minister, some of which will not go to the minister, and I rely on the judgment of the officers who work in my department to decide what information should go in different formats.

Information & Ethics committee  That's a very interesting question and one that I think—

Information & Ethics committee  —could use some discussion. In the case of the United States, for example, these reports are prepared, as I said earlier, with public consumption in mind. We have not been preparing such reports in Canada. Indeed, our preference in the use of our officers' limited time at our missions abroad is to prepare these confidential reports for the government for use in advising and in preparing policy.

Information & Ethics committee  That's where it stops.

Information & Ethics committee  They would be familiar with that, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Formally?

Information & Ethics committee  It means that an officer is given the authority to sign, to say that this material can be released, or should be released, and I approve the redactions that have been made and the selection of documents, and it represents to the best of our knowledge and ability the material that's been requested by the requester.

Information & Ethics committee  I do, but it's like a chain. I get it, I pass it down to Ms. Thomsen, and she passes it down to Ms. Sabourin.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that's what I said in my opening statement.

Information & Ethics committee  The United States—and I have seen these reports over time, but I haven't read one recently—prepares a global report, and that report is public from the moment it is written. It's written for public consumption by those who prepare it. That's the difference with our reports. First of all, they aren't written for the public consumption point of view.

Information & Ethics committee  I guess I'm a little confused by the question, because it has to do with what advice—

Information & Ethics committee  I don't know where they would have gotten the impression that there was a chill, because the handling of their requests was still consistent with the handling of all our requests. That could well have been their interpretation of the material when they got it, but I can assure you that there has not been any change of attitude inside my department with respect to handling these requests.

Information & Ethics committee  The same request has another complaint against it from Mr. Attaran, having to do with the information that was provided; in other words, that the redactions themselves were improper.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, there certainly was a delay with respect to the request from Professor Attaran, which, you will recall, Madam Sabourin apologized for on May 29 and which I again referred to in my opening statement.

Information & Ethics committee  That criteria will be set more or less on an annual basis. The human rights people will get together with different of our geographic units and others and discuss what the current issues of the day are, where have there been reports of particular difficulties, and where do we need to know more about certain conditions in certain countries because of instability in the region.