First of all, I want to thank you, Ms. Maynard. You are really welcome at this committee, because this topic is really fascinating and interesting, especially to me. I myself have had experience with access to information requests to several levels of government, on both the provincial and the municipal sides.
As a preamble, I will say that the amount of information processed by government devices is increasing exponentially. In addition, the number of access to information requests is starting to increase at the same time as the amount of information to be processed, communicated and authorized is becoming very large, particularly with the collaborative tools we use on our devices. I would really like to hear your opinion: Is this the main reason for non-compliance with the Access to Information Act?
It takes a while to receive and process a request and then respond to it, and the 30‑day deadline is not always met. I've experienced it several times in my life. It's not unwillingness on the part of the person handling the request. Rather, it's the process itself that is becoming increasingly complicated, particularly when there are redactions, which is often.