Evidence of meeting #7 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was requests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
I'm really not that focused on complainants; I'm more focused on the requests. So going back to the requests, 47% of the requests are from ten people, and a third are from three people. You're telling me it costs $43 million to administer the act?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
The top ten complainants I've listed are those who filed complaints with my office. There's a distinction between the top ten users and whatever profile of users is out there. There's no direct correlation between complaints. A lot of people don't complain. I see 6% of cases--
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
I'm not talking about complaints. Let's just focus on requests. The chart you have here says the top ten requesters generate 47% of the requests.
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
No, I say complainants.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
The entire inventory on January 31 was--
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I take the entire inventory of my complaints, and they're the frequent users in the context of my complaints. Those are the ones I see.
Conservative
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
I think it's risky to extrapolate these figures and apply them to the system.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Some interesting points have come up about whether there is a fix for extraordinary users, whether they be complainants or requesters. That may be something we can explore at our next meeting.
I have one question for you, Commissioner, before you go. Does the Government of Canada have to amend or somehow otherwise change the Access to Information Act for us to successfully discharge the responsibilities under the act?
Information Commissioner, Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada
Yes.