Information & Ethics committee  I will explain our position at the outset.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, thank you very much. I want at the outset to emphasize, for the record and for the media and members of the public present, that we're here at the invitation of this committee. We're not here seeking to make a presentation on behalf of

Information & Ethics committee  Doug.

Information & Ethics committee  Ladies and gentlemen, it's in your hands to decide what you want to hear from us.

Information & Ethics committee  We didn't remove all exemptions. There are certain things that so clearly and manifestly should not be subject to disclosure that they speak for themselves; you don't have to make the case. The most obvious one that I can think of is the preliminary police investigation of alle

Information & Ethics committee  Exemption from commissioner's review is different. We eliminated that because we felt the commissioner was a trusted servant of the public. Lawyers in the Department of Justice are entrusted with solicitor-client information. Why wouldn't the lawyers in the commissioner's offic

Information & Ethics committee  I don't recall that we had an extensive discussion on that issue specifically, but the standard that had been applied, which we didn't alter, was that any organization was subject to act if the majority of its board of directors was appointed by the government. If it was a non-pr

Information & Ethics committee  Injury is obviously a consideration that must be taken into account. In the end we looked at applying the principle of a public interest override. We greatly expanded the public interest override. Even where there is an absolute right to entitlement—I've forgotten the phrase we u

Information & Ethics committee  All information—

Information & Ethics committee  We added eight categories.

Information & Ethics committee  We had a great deal of discussion about the issue, as you can well imagine. It started at the outset with the commissioner complaining about the inordinate delays, of sometimes two, three, and four years, before the information was released—an incredible portion. All the details

Information & Ethics committee  I've not been aware of it, so this is just an immediate reaction to your question. It would lower public confidence in it down to, perhaps, an unacceptable level. The mere fact that it can be done would be enough to damage the integrity of the system, in my view. I could it see

Information & Ethics committee  The hybrid model would greatly assist in achieving this goal.

Information & Ethics committee  It's an injustice for a cabinet officer to be able to declare, no, and that the commissioner can't even look at it. That just destroyed public confidence in the integrity of the system. If you give a minister or the cabinet the broad ability to veto the release of information, I

Information & Ethics committee  We did a good deal of that, but you have to be careful about these rankings by the Centre for Law and Democracy and others that rank the most unexpected countries as numbers one, two, three, and four. For example, I have always felt that the constitution of Pakistan is one of the