Information & Ethics committee  I do, Mr. Chairman.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, good morning. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am appearing before you today on your study of the access to information requests for the department's internal report entitled “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights”. I am

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. I have to say I'm not familiar with the precise timelines that were involved in all of this, but when I sent my letter to the committee last week, I included these documents, and they took some time to put together. As I recall, in your testimony on the 29th, you spec

Information & Ethics committee  When I say that I am the delegated authority for the exercise of discretion under the ATIP, that is simply the formal delegation that goes with the deputy minister and down through Ms. Thomsen and Ms. Sabourin. She has the delegated authority to make those judgments. That's what

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, she does.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, as the head of the ATIP unit in the department, she is responsible for the oversight of the 17 or so analysts. She has management responsibilities to ensure that the ATIP requests are processed in a prompt manner according to the law, that they are handled appropriately in

Information & Ethics committee  I was unaware that the committee had asked her to come with such dates. She came with the material she had at the time. As a result of the request of the committee, these schedules were produced.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you referring to request 605, which was submitted on March 13?

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I think in the context in which the request was read there was an assumption on the part of the department that he was requesting a global report analogous to the reports that are produced in the United States.

Information & Ethics committee  I think the chronology indicates that this was subsequently done and that in the end the requester received the information he was seeking.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The questioner asked whether I had read the report that was written by Ms. Bloodworth, and my answer is yes, I have read the report. I read it about six weeks ago, subsequent to the filing of the request for access to it. That's the answer to your quest

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chair, in answering that question I have to say that an assumption is being made by the member of Parliament that Canada is responsible for torture. First of all, I don't think that's an assumption that can go unchallenged, but it's not something I'm here to really talk about

Information & Ethics committee  It would be up to the officers involved with the report to bring it to my attention. I would hope they would do so, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I will go to your first point. When they come in, these reports are not, as you said, made available to the minister. They haven't been drafted with that in mind. They are drafted and prepared to provide information to the department more generally on human rights condition