Well, I absolutely agree with them. She has many arguments as to why an exclusion for journalistic source documents shouldn't be entertained by this committee.
First of all, it's her position—and I agree with it—that all decisions of information officers should be reviewed independently of government. She is independent of government. She's an officer of Parliament. She has maintained that journalistic source privilege is not absolute. The courts have said so. Somebody has to apply their mind to Professor Wigmore's four-pronged test to determine whether or not journalistic source privilege applies.
I think what resolves the issue clearly is the fact that the name of an individual is private information under the Privacy Act. If a document were released that contained the name of confidential journalistic sources, it would have to be redacted, because the name of an individual is private and protected by the Privacy Act. I believe all of this concern about journalistic source privilege is really a bit of a non-starter.
Plus, she's done 1,200 cases with the CBC, and not a single one of them has dealt with journalistic source privilege. That's not to say that one might not arise, but we seem to be using an inordinate amount of time dealing with this one problem that the Information Commissioner of Canada doesn't even think is an issue.