You're the one, with respect, who said we should look to the duty of assistance by public servants to backstop this regressive measure, which was described as such not by me but by the commissioner. The duty to assist is only as good as the individual who is there. That individual may consistently thwart requests, I don't know. All I know is that the remedy will be so long in the disciplinary process that The Globe and Mail reporter who sought that article may have long since moved on. So I don't accept that.
Also, to suggest that the type of record and the period being requested is no big deal is wrong. It is a very big deal because you don't know. That's the point the commissioner made so powerfully before this very committee. You think you can rely on the good faith of some junior official who may not want the government to be embarrassed by the disclosure of records showing misspending or maladministration. That's the whole point of this bill. It's not to make things easy for the government. It's to give citizens what the courts have described as a quasi-constitutional right to know in our democracy. All this does, with great respect, is put obstacles in the way that are totally unnecessary and, as the commissioner said, “regressive”.