Yes, Mr. Chair, I can begin with that, and Mr. Lemieux may have some more details to add to it.
Generally, when one looks at the manual, and Ms. Sabourin was referring to the document that we distributed to you today, and as Mr. Kratchanov indicated in his opening remarks as well, this isn't a science, but there's an awful lot of judgment there. However, it's judgment that is circumscribed by the legislation, the regulations, and then the case law that has evolved since 1983.
Generally, access to information professionals start off in some assisting role, possibly in a larger department, or they may actually be working in a sector within a department coordinating with the access to information coordinator, the lead, on it. They will develop their expertise primarily through experience, through working with other professionals who know the practice better, and then through the training sessions that we offer, the various pieces that are there.
It is something that really requires us then to grow access to information professionals, because it's based on our legislation. The legislation differs in provinces, so it's not even something that's necessarily easily transferable from another jurisdiction.
This is something where our ATI coordinators and the ATI leads in departments really grow, and it's something we are focusing on pretty strongly right now with this expansion of institutions due to the revisions under the Federal Accountability Act. It is putting greater pressure on it, and that is one of the reasons why we've run 17 training sessions so far this fiscal year, just really to bring more people up to speed and help them move up that learning curve more rapidly, which is primarily, it seems, an experience learning curve. It's a case of “I've applied this exemption before, this exclusion before, this injury test before; I've got experience in it, or I phone people who have more experience in it and work on it that way.”
So it is very much growing a profession that doesn't exist very strongly outside the federal government and its agencies.