I understand that Commissioner Reid might have some very intelligent arguments as to why those exemptions should not be there. What I'm merely pointing out here is that we are not restricting access that was previously available. If we're giving 70% access to information to CBC, that's 70% more than we had under the status quo. There was no access to information for CBC whatsoever prior to Bill C-2. There was no access to information available for the National Arts Centre under the status quo, period. There was no access to information available for the Privacy Commissioner or the officers of Parliament. You might say there should be no exemptions for those organizations, but in fact prior to Bill C-2 there was no ATI ability whatsoever.
I just don't understand your comments that we've gone away from ATI, when in fact we've made major steps forward to expanding and broadening access.
On the other areas that are in fact new exemptions, because some of them are, let's review them.
First of all, on clause 152, discretionary exemptions for internal audit working papers, you made some intelligent arguments as to why you don't believe they should be in there. But, respectfully, these are exemptions that the Auditor General asked for. These aren't efforts by the government to undermine the transparency of government. It's merely a response to another agent of Parliament.
Clauses 172 to 179 are exemptions for Export Development Canada on information related to customers. How could an organization like that operate if you're going to tell customers that deal with the organization their information could become public under ATI?