Mr. Leadbeater, I’d like to come back to the practice of releasing access to information requests to Ministers’ offices or to the Prime Minister. We recently heard about an incident where the name of a journalist who had made an ATIP request was released.
Of course, this may not be the case for Liberals and Conservatives now, but it brought to light a practice that I was completely unaware of. I find this rather worrisome in terms of what it could lead to. Indeed, when someone files an ATIP request, whether it is a Member of Parliament or a reporter, that individual can be sure that this information request will circulate inside the department and within the Cabinet. Knowing that, it seems to me that people will be far less inclined to make an access to information request. It casts a shadow over the work we do. At the very least, it is an additional obstacle, not to mention the fact that it gives an undue political advantage to whatever office happens to have that information.
The Justice Department is currently reviewing the Access to Information Act. Rather than asking public officials to be courageous, could we not just add a section to the Act prohibiting this kind of practice?