Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks again, Mr. Marleau, Ms. Neill, and Ms. Legault, for coming here again.
I can assure you that I've gained a greater understanding of your role as Information Commissioner every time you've visited us here, and certainly both your chart and your commentary today have been quite colourful, so let's just see what we can do about putting that new hip in there.
Since your last appearance before this committee, we've heard from a number of different witnesses who both support and oppose the recommendations you've made for reforming the Access to Information Act. I suppose that's fair. After all, as you know, we are trying to make this the best possible ATIA we can.
The Minister of Justice was just before this committee and expressed concerns that recommendations 4 and 11 appear to be in conflict. I'd just like to go through what he mentioned. He said:
My concern about the Information Commissioner's recommendations 4 and 11 can be boiled down to one of ease of access to justice. Under the current ombudsman model, an access requester can complain to the commissioner about a refusal of access. The commissioner is obliged to investigate, and upon the completion of the investigation, the commissioner will make a finding and a non-binding recommendation. If the requester is unhappy with the result, he or she can then go to the Federal Court.
So my question is, do you think the minister has a point that the current system does satisfy a requester who has a complaint?