I don't disagree. The point I was making is that if there is a way to have the decisions about disclosure and about preparing ministers for their communications function made entirely devoid of who and what group of individuals may have made the access request--whether they're media...but especially who and what their motivation is, what they are looking for, whether they are doing a story on this or a documentary for that--I think it would lead to a fairer, more impartial application of the Access to Information Act.
The government runs a thing called CAIRS, computerized access to information request system. Every government institution that receives an access request is required to put into the system the subject of the access request, the date received, the department and so forth. The whole purpose of that system is to allow central agencies, the Privy Council Office in particular, to monitor what's coming into the entire system and to coordinate the responses. That is so that one department is not giving out things that another department is.
That system also includes categories for the requester. It does not have the name of the requester, but it has categories, in quite discrete forms. We worry that the system encourages discriminatory treatment. Some will come out--the media requests or the MP requests--and get a lot more hand-wringing, communications, and Qs and As. So they will be later and perhaps less forthcoming.
You have a point. It's not just an identity issue; it's an issue of being preoccupied with what groups as well as what individuals are making access requests.