What you're saying is something that we hear quite a lot.
When I talk about changing the culture of government, that's exactly what I'm talking about. People actually have to understand that all of us are carrying a public function. We are working for other people, all of us, in everything we do every day.
The other misconception is.... The Access to Information Act is actually structured in a way that what needs to be protected is going to be protected: solicitor-client privilege, personal information, advice and deliberation; all of these exemptions are there for that specific reason.
In the example I gave about the notes, obviously these notes would have been covered by the national security exemption. There is nothing improper about that. When people and institutions are covered by access to information, it does generate a certain decorum. The decorum should not be that you don't take notes. The decorum should not be that you do not create records. But the decorum can be that you don't make disparaging comments about a colleague in your notes because those will be disclosed. You will find that there has been quite good discipline instilled in the public service in the way that communications occur in the workplace. Those are good things, actually.
But in terms of taking notes, yes, they would be covered and they are covered for all of us within public institutions, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. We just have to own up to fact that these notes are part of the record. Probably in many instances they would be transitory records, so they are subject to an access to information request. If they exist at the time the access to information request is made, they are part of what is responsive to the request. Unless they are really crucial notes that you need to put into your file, they would become part of the official records, and if they are part of transitory records that you're allowed to let go after a while, then that's fine. It becomes a question of whether that's a record of business value or whether that's a transitory record.