I have had the advantage of working provincially and federally in both tribunal systems and the ombudsman system. The current flaws of both of those systems are not really in their legal aspects, but in the fact that the legislation that sets them up does not create a balance between the requester, whether it's for personal information or other information, and access-to-information systems, because the processes are open-ended. Therefore, the person who holds the information and does not want to release it can usually go on and on. If there aren't extensions, they can simply delay, and the commissioner's office rarely has any kind of coercive power.
By adding these short delays, where basically it's not the burden of proof but the burden to act that is on the body with the information, I think we levelled the playing field in favour of the person who's requesting that information. As Mr. Wells has said, either you give the information or you move to the next step, which is taking it up to a place where it can be decided upon finally. What we see now across Canada with the existing systems—I don't think one is faster than the other, but I haven't done that study, perhaps the committee has—is the ability to prolong the delays indefinitely. The more powerful you are, as an information holder, whether it be personal information or third-party information, the longer you can delay the process. I think the ingenious part of this kind of all-Newfoundland solution is the fact that it has changed that fundamental balance in favour of the citizen requester.