First of all, the way I've put it in my bill is to call them restrictions or “secondary”. They shouldn't be, as they are right in the preamble, as they now are in the access act.... It's not a principle. If you make it a principle, then you have a dual road, and guess which road wins? Secrecy wins, and that's what's happening.
I start from proactive disclosure, and therefore I don't think the public interest override in itself does much. I have tested that, not only federally under the commercial information clause, which has an override clause for health and safety issues.... I ended up in the Court of Appeal having to pay Health Canada and the Government of Canada $1,500 for that test case. That's what they think of it.
Provincially, where you have to prove compelling, overwhelming, legal public need, it's impossible. It's very nice for the Reid bill and others to put it in, but it doesn't work as a solution. Yes, there may be significant injury tests, and time restrictions, if a document has to be exempt for a year or two or three, depending on its sensitivity. Remember what Commissioner Grace and Commissioner Reid said: they haven't seen any documents that are really sensitive or that secret. I can say the same thing. I've seen cabinet records from 20 years, or even sooner. There's nothing sensitive about them.
So time restriction, injury-based, and so on.... I could elaborate more on cabinet records, but I don't know whether the chair wants me to add more.