If you're asking me, I think the practice is wrong, because basically what you're doing is creating a parallel, unnecessary system. It's for damage control; it's for the information as to the political spin and so on.
I remember when Finance Minister Michael Wilson acted as his own access coordinator. There you had the whole thing come together. When I applied for polls and he didn't like the fact that people in polls said that his economic policies were wrong, he didn't necessarily want to release them. He got mad sometimes when there were media stories as a result of my access requests. But that's not the way the system normally works.
I don't think there's any value, and that's why one recommendation is to outlaw or ban amber lighting, or everything going up the line to the ministers. If the information is valid, then there's no reason.... It should just go in or out; it's not something that needs a spin put on it. There are sensitive issues—very few—that somebody up the line may need to know. But when you get everybody and his dog into a room.... In this memo I have, you get so many officials, just like in the Bronskill thing, that it gets out of hand.