Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Could we also file a request for an unexpurgated version of the document? Could we file an official request? I know that we have already asked for it. We received a reply from an official. However, could we not try another approach, perhaps contacting the minister himself, for example? That might be a good way to go about it. On that note, I am now going to turn my attention to our witnesses, as I also have some questions for them.
As you can see, obtaining an expurgated version of the report is of great concern to us. It would be very useful for our study.
My first question is for Mr. Marleau, the Information Commissioner.
Mr. Marleau, last week we heard testimony from Ms. Sabourin, who is responsible for access to information at the Department of Foreign Affairs. We know that your office gave the Department of Foreign Affairs an F, which is not the best grade that a department can receive, quite the opposite.
Ms. Sabourin also said that at one time, she was only able to respond to 39 per cent of the access to information requests within the statutory timeframe. She is now able to respond to 80 per cent of the requests within this timeframe and says that she's very proud of this achievement. However, as you know, the act stipulates that the timeframe must be respected in all cases. She should be responding to 100 per cent of the access to information requests within the statutory timeframe, yet she states proudly that she does so in 80 per cent of the cases. Frankly, I find her tone and her approach to be indicative of a certain disdain for the Canadian public.
Furthermore, she refused to provide Professor Attaran with a report offering an overview of the human rights situation in all of the world's countries, saying that such a report does not exist. Although she knew full well that reports were produced on each country, she chose simply to say that there was no report dealing with all countries.
Such an attitude is rather appalling. I think that she had a responsibility to tell him that reports on each individual country were available. Do you think that it is standard practice, among other things, to respond to only 80 per cent of requests and to refuse to provide a document because the request was not clear enough?