Information & Ethics committee  I wouldn't go that far about this particular issue at this point. I think a different issue that has to do with Afghanistan and access to information requests should probably be followed up. It's not particular to the matter you're talking about here, so I don't know if the chair wants me to go into what that might be.

Information & Ethics committee  If I could intercede here as well, there's a separate section of the Access to Information Act that allows a department or the government to withhold information that it has obtained from foreign governments. That's subsection 13(1), which I've never seen in any of these. It's always subsection 15(1).

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that was in my response.

Information & Ethics committee  On March 22.

Information & Ethics committee  I still have not gotten the report.

Information & Ethics committee  I have to answer that very carefully, because when I was the access to information and privacy training officer at National Defence, we were going through the Somalia inquiry. If you think this stuff that you're dealing with is sensitive, you ain't seen nothing. That was a departmental thing that they actually set up.

Information & Ethics committee  I think my experience reveals two things. First of all, anybody in the public service, at any level, who creates documents and reviews them in the course of their work thinks their work is important and that, because it's important, it must be secret. Amongst people who create and hold records, I think there's a tendency to overstate the import of those documents to be released.

Information & Ethics committee  By suppertime. I live in Greely and I have three teenage kids, so it's a little hairy.

Information & Ethics committee  I think my parking meter has expired anyway, so we're in it for the long haul here.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  No, she was an ATIP officer, Francine Archambault, who works within the access to information and privacy directorate. The other thing I want to make very clear is that, having submitted hundreds and hundreds of requests to many federal institutions over a number of years, as well as having been on the other side of the table as a serving uniformed officer, it has been my experience that the ATIP organization within a federal institution is extremely anxious to please a requester.

Information & Ethics committee  Sure.

Information & Ethics committee  Because of my background in access to information and privacy--

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I received that in English only. That's my first language. I don't have a second language, although I was raised in Newfoundland, so I guess that's sort of another language. In any event, I was not satisfied with that answer. I had reason to believe, from sources that I keep confidential, that a report about Afghanistan in particular, among other countries, did exist.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.