You have two questions in your presentation.
First, on the suggestion that the increase in backlogs is a result of extending the act to a number of new organizations, I don't know. I'm not the Information Commissioner so I don't have the statistics, but somehow, from reading last year's report, I don't get this impression from it.
Certainly there has been an incremental increase, as you would expect to have, because VIA Rail, Canada Post, CBC, and some others have been made subject to the act. That may be an adjustment from one year to the next, but that's the mandate, and the Information Commissioner has the staff--he got additional staff--required to deal with these. I don't think we should increase the coverage of the act on the one hand and then deplore the fact that there will be additional requests and additional complaints as a result of it. It's a consequence of it, and I think a happy consequence of it.
I know the Information Commissioner seems to have a bee in his bonnet when repeatedly he alludes to those requesters that make a number of requests. I know some of them personally, because they represent people in the media, or people like you as members of Parliament, or industries, or whatever. My answer to that is, “Bless them.” They have a skilful use of the Access to Information Act. Their requests are normally targeted. They're not vexatious or superfluous. They use the act the way it should be used and they direct their requests to the appropriate institution.
Ultimately--and I will finish on this point--I hope you will ask the question of me later on as to how many requests we are getting in Canada and whether it is excessive compared with other democracies. I would be pleased to answer that, to perhaps better focus that answer.