Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  The person who cashes the cheque obviously has to know.

Information & Ethics committee  I'd submit that it's a “need to know” principle: who needs to know in order to fulfill this request?

Information & Ethics committee  The access to information system was the subject of a 2002 study by a government task force. In this study it was learned that the government spends approximately $800 million on communications. That's the government generating messages it wishes the public to pick up about its operations, policy, and programs.

Information & Ethics committee  That's why it is injurious to be categorizing requests as media requests and to be subjecting them to special treatment, which is the subject of our complaint, as I mentioned earlier.

Information & Ethics committee  Could I add something to Ken's remarks? The previous witnesses have also spoken about the fact that in some cases the identity of an individual can be deduced by officials within a department when it is a media person or a journalist who has made the request, because if I remember correctly--I'm not quoting verbatim--so-and-so has been writing stories about such-and-such, and here we have an access request from an individual about this topic; it's a journalist; it must be Fred.

Information & Ethics committee  Normally, the recourse is to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner. In this particular instance, we did not do that because our purpose was to demonstrate, as it turns out, that access to information requests made by media are subject to systematic delays that are routine.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. I don't know them off the top of my head, but I can make them available to the committee in our report.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before your committee today. I will continue in English because it is the language I would rather speak. As you may know, the Canadian Newspaper Association is the voice of Canada's daily newspapers, and two key areas concern us: our business environment and threats to press freedom.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Journalistic sources must be protected. There is no question that this must be achieved.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Commissioner Reid suggested wording that would ensure such protection. He proposed the protection— I could quote from his statement. He said that the head of the CBC would have the power not to disclose documents that are of a journalistic nature. I think this is sufficient protection for most government departments.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  You'd have a bill that was actually moving the ball forward. We could argue about how far, but it would move the ball forward.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  The open government act actually contains an expansion of the original expression of purpose in the original Access to Information Act, which says: The purpose of this Act is to make government institutions fully accountable to the public, and to make the records under the control of those institutions fully accessible to the public, by extending the present laws....

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  One of the positive features of Bill C-2 is that it now covers crown corporations and officers of Parliament, who were previously not subject to the act. That is a very positive measure, it is a good decision. However, the mandatory exception...

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I could continue in English.