Actually, we have a very good relationship with the institutions we investigate. The challenge is that people are filing more and more ATIP requests. More and more people are asking questions about our government, its decisions and its spending.
The ATIP request system is very costly to my office, which must do investigations, and to the government, which must manage everything. If we want to reduce the pressure this system puts on the government, the government has to start disclosing information voluntarily. I'm talking about proactive voluntary disclosure and making information available in both official languages on the government website. Canadians shouldn't have to file an ATIP request when we know they should have access to the information in question.
This will also help with accountability, which I talked about earlier. Canadians will have more and more confidence in government if they have access to information that has been proactively made public, and they don't need to file an ATIP request. Often, people who file requests with my office think that the government wants to keep the information they seek secret and not disclose it. That's not the case. It's just that there's a lot of information out there. We want institutions to think about it and determine what information Canadians should have access to. That way, people wouldn't have to wait for a response to their ATIP request.