That's a good point. Monsieur Vincent asked that question to me the other day.
I understand Madame Lavallée's interest in this item in terms of seeing whether the document in question was properly handled by the administrative staff of the foreign affairs department, which I believe is where it comes from, but the fact of the matter is that we have a system in place, and I think this committee, of all committees, should be respecting the Information Commissioner's role. They have had official requests for a review of whether that was an accurate blacking out of that document or not.
I think it would be very much premature of us to call witnesses in the middle of that review going on. I believe there's a number of ATI requests that have come in, as they weren't happy with the document they received. They are appealing to the Information Commissioner to rule on those issues, whether there needs to be change.
As we know, the Information Commissioner, who was here a few weeks ago, indicated to us that through their investigation they have the right to look at the document. They look at all 13 sections of the law that allows for the blacking out of certain areas, and they make a determination of whether that was the right thing to do or not. Then they make a ruling on whether that should be released or if there should be changes.
For us to get involved as a committee in the middle of that process.... I've talked to Mr. Martin about this before. I'm not one opposed to looking at access to information legislation, when it could be from a broader piece, but I don't think we should be getting involved in the middle of an investigation that's done by the commission that reports to this committee.
My guess would be that you could call them in as witnesses and they'd tell you that they're in the middle of an investigation, a quasi-legal procedure, and that they can't answer that question for us, or can't give us a determination, because that would prejudice the work that their investigators are doing. I think there are some issues on timing here, but I think this will be done fairly quickly because of the newsworthiness of the requests, and the commission will work on that fairly quickly.
I think it's appropriate for this committee. If we're interested in seeing what the answers are from a procedural point of view, I think that's great. But I think we need to get the ruling first, before we start calling witnesses who are in the middle of an investigation, who won't be able to answer any questions on this particular item because they have a legal obligation to do otherwise.
I don't mind doing a study on it. On this piece here...I only indicate the one because that's what my friend from the opposition wanted to look at. We got a report and an update from the commissioner saying he misled us a little bit, that he thought there were 66 but there are only 55 or 51--I can't remember the number--pieces of legislation that had requests. The department had refused to listen to the advice of the commissioner and they had to go to court on it.
The commissioner won on a number of those areas.