Thank you, Mr. Stanton.
Going back, if I may, to the guidelines that you have, and reading further than I did, because I don't want to leave any particular impressions necessarily, your guidelines say, “In some circumstances”--I say, in some circumstances, not all circumstances--“it is appropriate to disclose the identity of a requester to a departmental official for a consistent purpose such as...”. And then some examples are given.
Now, putting aside the minister, who is at the head of the department and presumably could know whatever the minister wants to know and is under secrecy and whatever, I'm concerned about the wording. It says “for a consistent purpose”. I looked at that and didn't quite figure out what “consistent purpose” means.
I looked at the French version. The French version says,
“for a consistent purpose”.
It makes sense to me, if you have a logical purpose for giving the information to the departmental official. I think “logical” makes more sense than “consistent” in the English term, and I'd suggest that you consider that.
But in any event, your guideline makes it clear, it would seem to me, that you just can't willy-nilly give the information or the name to a departmental official. It has to be for some logical purpose in following up the access to information request. And then you give some examples, but that's not exhaustive.
Am I more or less understanding the guideline correctly?