Good afternoon, Mr. Marleau. I am pleased to see you again before the committee.
I will save some of my questions for your next appearance, next week.
You have explained very well that the Act is obsolete, since it is more than 25 years old. Also, if we want to improve the Act and make it more effective, we will have to deal with issues that did not exist 25 years ago such as the fight against terrorism, identity theft or cybercrime. The arrival of Internet means that the Act has to be reviewed in order to take account of all those changes.
Like my colleagues, I also want to congratulate you for the information you have provided us and especially your color-coded table which is very useful. We appreciate that.
Let us come back to this table which is very comprehensive. Green means that you agree with the recommendation and striped green means that you agree with reservations. Red means that you disagree. Yellow means that you have reservations, and white, that you make no comment.
I want to underline two things. Let us begin with recommendation 11 which is “that the Access to Information Act allow requesters the option of direct recourse to the Federal Court for access refusals”. I see that there is no recommendation in green in the whole of the table.
Could you explain your position on that recommendation? Do you disagree with it, do you agree or do you have a more nuanced position about what the witnesses have told us relating to allowing requesters to have direct recourse to the courts?