Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, folks, and thank you for your presentation.
There's no question that the Information Commissioner wasn't happy with Environment Canada's performance, and she gave you an F. I want to follow up on that, and hopefully I'll have time.
The area I want to delve into first is whether there is any political influence, or potential for it, over access to information requests within the department. I think you are well aware that last spring it was an extremely hot topic at this committee. There was an article in the Hill Times talking about cabinet ministers' offices being under orders to pressure bureaucrats to pare down the amount of information released under access to information. In fact, it was noted at this committee that the former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Mr. Christian Paradis, and his former staffer, Sebastien Togneri, did admit to some political interference over access to information, or at least Mr. Togneri did.
Has anyone on your staff ever had discussions with ministerial exempt staffers about the content or the quality of information to be released by Environment Canada on access requests?