Information & Ethics committee  Yes, for sure. An online request form is always easier than having to deal with each institution. Now there's one portal that people can go to and ask for the information.

Information & Ethics committee  The problem is with respect to access requests. I'm dealing with complaints at my office. Again, Minister Fortier would be the preferred person to ask that question.

Information & Ethics committee  I would love to be able to develop my investigation within a year. I provided you with my inventory. You'll see that some of those files are complex. They deal with secret information or very complex information. I'm worried that if somebody has to go to court, they won't be able to represent themselves.

Information & Ethics committee  One of them is the timelines that it takes in my office. Again, I have given you the inventory. We receive every year more files than we can absorb. Unfortunately, at some point we have to decide what we're going to tackle. We're tackling the old files at the same time as we're trying to reduce the inventory of new files, but when we are funded for 4,000 cases a year, that's the issue.

Information & Ethics committee  The report speaks for itself. It's a good summary of all the issues that we're facing in the access system. They're issues that we've known about for years, issues that you've heard about from experts and issues that I've mentioned in my submissions. We knew about them before 2019, when Bill C-58 was tabled, so it's disappointing that there's no action plan.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll say that Bill C-58 gave me the power to order institutions to issue disclosure and to meet some deadlines. Unfortunately, my orders are sometimes being ignored. I don't have a certification process to go to the Federal Court to make sure that these orders are seen as having the power of an order from a court.

Information & Ethics committee  You have two choices when an order is issued by my office. You accept it and comply with it, or you can go to court to challenge it. What I've asked is to have a mechanism to make sure that people will not just ignore the orders. It doesn't happen that often, but we're seeing now a trend of institutions that are not saying they're going to challenge it, but they're just taking more time to actually comply with my orders.

Information & Ethics committee  First of all, thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee once again in the context of your ongoing study of the access to information and privacy system. During my last appearance before this committee, I noted that I was looking forward to the conclusion of the government's review of the access to information regime, which was launched in the summer of 2020.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it has helped to reduce the number of complaints. As you go through it, our website and the complaint form provide some information on whether or not you're too late, or whether it's the appropriate place to put in a complaint. The online complaint form has opened up the accessibility, but we use it as a tool, as well, to educate and properly inform our complainants about the rules with respect to the complaint system.

Information & Ethics committee  I would not be able to tell you. We don't keep those. We just have general statistics on whether it's a member of the public or journalists. I can give you those statistics, but I don't think they are specific to members of Parliament.

Information & Ethics committee  That's not something I would know. I know there's a big turnaround. Maybe TBS would have some statistics on that.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you asking me?

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry. I know it's seven years under the legislation for our term of appointment. I think most of the commissioners had a few extra years, but I can come back to you with the actual numbers from each commissioner in the past.

Information & Ethics committee  I really think I agree that it's important for ministers and cabinets to be able to discuss frankly and openly policies, legislation and changes to what's going to happen to Canada in a protected way. When I ask for the authority to review those cabinet confidences, it's not to disclose them.

Information & Ethics committee  No, we're not there yet.