Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very relevant question. My answer is that, regardless of what the other provinces or other countries are doing, I think that we should always be comparing ourselves to the best.
The best way to prevent subjectivity in the decision of whether to accept or reject a request is for the government to realize that it is a bad idea to say that it can no longer make the information available based on the excuse that some people will abuse the system.
People are getting cynical. They have the impression that they do not have access to the information they need to make an informed decision about what their governments are doing. Scientists and researchers who want to do a decent job of auditing and monitoring parliamentarians are unable to do so. They do not have access to the information they need because the system is too cumbersome.
The government should make all the records available and make a list of them so that people who want access to some type of information or another can get it.
Today, in 2017, the technology is there. New start-ups run by bright people are popping up all across the country. They could easily set up a system with a list of all of the available records. Canadians, researchers, and oversight bodies would be free to choose what they want and would have access to the actual information from the get-go.