This is a good point, because during the Information Commissioner's testimony, in her recommendations, we attempted, and I believe some Liberal colleagues did as well, to get her to give us her experience, the points at which access to information requests were frustrated, and how she thought her recommendations would resolve that. We had no similar experience in testimony from the Privacy Commissioner. An opinion was offered, which was, “I like this other process”, but we didn't have any ground truthing of the experience.
If I have two commissioners—and this sometimes happens, because there's a natural tension that we experience between the Access to Information Commissioner, who wants as much information as is proper out there in the public, and the Privacy Commissioner, who's generally charged with keeping things private. That's a normal and natural tension. But one watchdog came forward and said how this would improve the experience of gaining access to information, holding government to account, and having evidence-based decision-making. I take that, actually, to be of greater value than the value of somebody coming in with anecdote and opinion.
As much as I respect the Privacy Commissioner and value his work, I asked for real-world experience. I got it from one commissioner but not from the other, so I'm going to side with the one who was able to ground truth anything that came before us. It's with that deferential respect that we chose one over the other, and I think that's commonsensical. Where I come from, that just makes sense, but maybe other people have different life experiences.