Thank you very much for the question.
I have in fact worked with different administrations throughout the years. The Access to Information Act has a provision for the minister to delegate this function to officials. In all these instances, this function was delegated to the office that I would have worked in or in whose management I would have participated. Right now, I'm the delegated authority for Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In the previous year, I would have been a simple officer doing work.
The officials who work in access take their obligations very seriously. When I say “officials”, I mean I am part of this responsibility. This is a legally based provision of information. I would have examined the exemptions to make sure the exemptions were well documented and they in fact met the provisions of the act.
I'm aware there are processes in which we serve notification to the minister's office. For new requests or when there's a release, those requests are provided in terms of the disclosure package so that the minister's office can in fact prepare in the event of any questions.
With regard to being directly told by a minister's office to redact, I am not aware of such a practice. We are at arm's length, and it doesn't happen.