Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I might, that would be helpful, I think, for future guidance for the committee members, but I will offer this, because in a sense we already have that in the letter from the Parliamentary Counsel to Mr. Jacques, the clerk of this committee, on March 20. What is said in this letter is that after we had requested that redactions be limited to matters of cabinet confidence and to matters of national security and privacy, the law clerk pointed out that the deputy minister of Health Canada went beyond that and in the letter said this:
A letter accompanying the documents stated that redactions had been made to protect personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act and that redactions had also been made “to avoid injury to international relations as well as relations with the provinces and territories; to protect information considered advice to a Minister; for the protection of government assets; and, to protect solicitor-client privilege.” These latter grounds for exemption from disclosure are contained in the Access to Information Act.
I'm not sure that that is a complete description, but it gives committee members here a glimpse into what the law clerk is telling us are the additional grounds contained in access to information, and some of them, as you can see, you can drive a truck through.
If we're going to let the department redact information that, in their opinion, is considered advice to a minister, or if they think it might damage relations with the provinces and territories, these are so amorphous, they are so subjective, they are so broad that you end up getting exactly what we got in March, which is page after page after page that was blacked out.
If that's what this committee wants, then that's what will happen if we adopt this amendment to allow redactions according to the Access to Information Act. We will have those criteria that I just read out.