Information & Ethics committee  There are a couple of ways of looking at it. The report card provides a letter on a scale. There are a number of reasons for it, and you do have to look at the reasons. You may have a very small department such as, let's say, Veterans Affairs, and suddenly an issue comes up that results in a lot of concerned individuals putting in for information, and the department is not set up for it.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you talking about the clerk's certificate to stop any complaint?

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not sure why. I have some personal knowledge of this issue, because I actually tried to argue it in the Federal Court as an individual back in the mid-1990s, when I put in an application concerning how the government sets fees. Essentially they charge a nickel or a dime or a quarter for photocopies.

Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps I could answer that question. Perhaps we could talk about the scheduling of trials. Why does it take years for a case to come to trial? We're not interested in seeing the personal notes of a judge or of a Crown prosecutor. We're more interested in administrative matters.

Information & Ethics committee  If I understood your question, you're referring to systematic reforms and to the availability of the facts and of statements made by the government or law enforcement authorities concerning the running of a police service.

Information & Ethics committee  This is one of these grey areas where privacy rights must be considered along with the public's right to know how the police service operates.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry, but I didn't catch the last bit.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think there is an overall number in terms of how many pages have been withheld. In terms of anecdotal evidence, in B.C. we've had cases where the B.C. government or public bodies have withheld documents and what has happened is somebody brown-enveloped the actual whole document, usually to a reporter.

Information & Ethics committee  I would have to say that governments probably do this now. If they are filing access requests to Canada, they're doing it through third parties. Also, given the way the system now works and how hard it actually is to get information.... If you're identified as being media or political, you're amber-lighted, and tiger teams work out on you.

Information & Ethics committee  That is formally or informally? I'm not inside the system; you're probably better placed to answer that.

Information & Ethics committee  I think we have to be very careful about transferring systems that would be appropriate for somebody using a government service, and who would take that aspect and use it for their own commercial benefit. I think that's a little different, because what we're talking about here is a right guaranteed under statute, which the Supreme Court of Canada has said has quasi-constitutional status.

Information & Ethics committee  No. The government is not and should not be allowed to hold back information from you unless they can find something in the act saying that this is why, for certain policy reasons, you can't have it. If they don't have that, they have to give it to you. That's what the commissioner's role should properly be: to say that you're entitled to it, so give the man his documents.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, that is our system. I'm not overly familiar with how that is done, to the extent that we're requesters, we're not commercial. We have not run into that, and we have not had experience with that. There are a number of policy reasons for doing it that way, especially if you have flow-throughs, reasons of GST, or other things.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, in our experience in B.C. we have not had major problems with it. But as to the reasons we have not had any major problem with it, I'm afraid I'm just not--

Information & Ethics committee  We do not have a policy on this.