We communicate this out to departments by contacting the officials responsible for information management within departments, reminding them that the authority rests with the librarian and archivist of Canada, and that they need to develop with us a records disposition authority, which we sign with them and which then permits them to dispose of the records that we have agreed can be disposed of.
There are many administrative and temporary documents that departments have the authority to destroy themselves under those records disposition authorities. We don't simply rely on departments phoning us up and saying, “Hey, we'd like a records disposition authority.” We're aware of which federal institutions there are; we're aware of all of those where we need to have records disposition authorities in place; and we have an ongoing process of updating and renewing those as mandates change, because as the mandate of a department changes, that generates new information needs.