I have a concern that if you move to a sliding scale such as reasonable fees you can end up in a situation where they become deterrent fees, and people feel that they can't afford the cost of an access request and therefore they are denied access to the fundamental information to which they're entitled to have a right of access.
I think there are some other ways of resolving some of these kinds of concerns where people are making requests that are clearly made in bad faith or made in a vexatious manner. Under the B.C. act, the company is entitled to go to the B.C. commissioner and say we would like the right not to have to respond to this access request because we think it was made in bad faith, or is frivolous, or is vexatious. I think that's certainly one thing you may want to look at putting into the act.
Certainly, when you start sliding the scale towards “reasonable”, which is a hard term to really interpret here, if you get beyond the minimal or no fee approach--and I think there are schedules you can use to look at what actually is a minimal cost, the cost of photocopying things and so on--I don't think the individual should have to bear the burden of the corporation saying, we have to do some research to know what to give you. I think that should be the company's burden. I think to impose the burden back on the individual is patently unfair. The company has collected and is using their information for their economic benefit, usually, and the individual should not have to pay a new cost on top of that to have access to it.