It's truly from a practical perspective. I'm in the business of law. We have deadlines that we are facing. We have to go to court and to make a plea. I use access on a regular basis in the pursuit of our files, whether they are for military or veterans or whatever. I depend on it. I have a quasi-constitutional right to have it, but as I said, that right is in peril. I'm not getting any results. I'm not only not getting the records I'm after, but if I were to make a complaint, I would have to line up for two or four or six years.
By having a fee—a genre de ticket modérateur—perhaps fewer people, or those committed to using the access act for their own personal needs, would be prepared to pay a minimum fee. That will, in fact, increase the possibility of the deputy ministers increasing their staff responding to it because it is a public service.
Most provinces charge a fee. It's in excess, in fact, of what I'm proposing. I, as a business, even propose that we could be charged a little bit higher fees if for no other reason than to accelerate the process and for no other to reason than to respond truly to what is a quasi-constitutional right. At the moment it's not.
Christmas is upon us soon. I don't expect that the staff in a federal institution or the information commission will double overnight. It won't happen. One way to do it is perhaps have the user pay for some of the services. It's nowhere near $90 million, but it's going to discipline the process and at the same time provide some welcome financial relief in these days.