Good afternoon, Dr. Larocque.
Thank you very much for your presentation.
I would like to come back to the commissioner's powers. You mentioned that in your opinion, the commissioner currently has enough powers, and there is no need to give him more. I have a question about the commissioner's powers.
You are probably aware that the commissioner has the power to investigate, among others, and the power to obtain information upon request. For example, any department or organization may need documents and request that they be sent over.
I'm giving you that example because in the Netflix case, which concerns me a great deal, there was an agreement between Canadian Heritage and Netflix. Under this agreement $25 million would be added for francophone-related investments. We do not really know what those investments will be. There were complaints. I made such a complaint, to find out what would be the approach taken in terms of the positive measures cited in part VII.
To my knowledge, the commissioner did not exercise his investigative power to demand the documents that would enable him to properly conclude his report. To my knowledge, the power to demand documentation has never been used by the commissioners. Am I mistaken? Why don't the commissioners exercise that power? They have gone to court several times on a few files.
When they do request documents, however, they are told those are confidential and they make no further efforts. They don't demand the documents, even if they would keep them confidential afterward. I understand that these documents would probably not be made public because they are confidential, but they could at least be properly used to inform investigations.
As you said, the commissioner does have certain powers, but it seems that he never uses them. Why is that, in your view?