That is a decline of roughly a third in the rate of refusal since the 2005 year--to refresh my colleague's memory as to when that was.
The RCMP actually received a great improvement in this year's report, now at C. It was at an F under the previous Liberal government, when Mr. Easter was in fact the minister. He did serve as the minister responsible for the RCMP, as Solicitor General, and the Liberal government secured a solid F during that time.
On to the question of political staff: do political staff have the ability to block the release of access to information requests?