I think so.
Evidence of meeting #93 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was requests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #93 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was requests.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:10 p.m.
Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau
I think so.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
If you have a specific idea around adverse presumption, particularly in certain categories of inquiry, I think that would be useful.
6:10 p.m.
Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau
If a department claims an extension in excess of, say, 60 days, not the 1,000 days that I was referring to or the 300 to 500 we see—because that is a complete denial—we should be using such a presumption and then going to the bank with it. You don't even have to go to the Information Commissioner if you are able to go to the Federal Court.
Most of the time what we are requesting—and what we've requested in the four requests put to the department—is significant enough, but we won't get a decision. If that is the case, a judicial decision would be required. That should bypass the normal and complete mechanism of going through the Information Commissioner, which takes forever to do.
It could be a ceiling that an organization cannot claim more than—and I'm using an artificial figure—100 days. If it does more than that, the requester would have the ability to bypass the established review mechanism through the Information Commissioner and go to a judicial review in a civil court. If that happens, we're going to see a significantly lower number of extension requests beyond whatever days.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
The very existence of the presumption would potentially speed up the response.
6:15 p.m.
Col (Ret'd) Michel Drapeau
It's the same token. If the Information Commissioner doesn't issue a report in a year, you get the green light to go to a judicial review. It doesn't mean that everybody would, but if you are so inclined and you can afford it, you should be able to do so.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you.
With that, colleagues, I want to bring this session of our time together to a close and thank the presenters. This has been a rich discussion. We appreciate it.
I'm going to suspend, and we are going in camera for a few minutes to discuss committee business.
The meeting is suspended.
[Proceedings continue in camera]