Certainly consultations do provide a challenge to the department to respond to requests. Because we're a regulatory department, there are a number of requests that require consultation to determine cabinet confidences, and because the environment is a shared jurisdiction, we have a number of files that have to be sent to other departments because we're working cooperatively. Certainly during the 2008-09 period there would have been a number of files that were late owing to consultation requirements, but delays were also caused by capacity issues within our own office in processing the requests as quickly as possible.
On November 23rd, 2010. See this statement in context.