To be clear, the Canadian Association of Journalists and I are not recommending entirely doing away with exemptions and exclusions. I think what the Canadian Taxpayers Federation just mentioned about, for example, national security issues, privacy issues, etc.... These are legitimate areas in which there may be some reason that we need to keep the information secret.
Going to the point you just mentioned, however, and the examples you brought out—trade negotiations, for example—once a trade negotiation is concluded, would it not be reasonable for the public to understand the grounds under which the deal was made? That seems to me to be a reasonable thing that the public should have access to.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the United States once wrote that “secrecy is for losers”. By that, I would say he means that secrecy is for those people who cannot rightly explain the decisions and actions they are taking to the public. There should be no reason for secrecy in the examples you mentioned, if government is able to actually defend making the decision it made, if it made a good decision.