Information & Ethics committee  Do you have delegated authority for anything?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for appearing in front of us today and for doing an absolutely fabulous job. We've been criticized on our side of the bench here a little bit on a couple of issues, and I think you've done a very good job of clarifying some of the th

Information & Ethics committee  Okay. I appreciate that. We heard earlier today from the chair, actually, who indicated that maybe we—not we but the staff—should have been more aggressive in making the call saying, “Do you really mean this instead of what's in front of us?” I think you've been very clear that,

Information & Ethics committee  So on the comments about us denying there was a report, that certainly didn't happen at your level, at the director level. The information that you were provided of what the person wanted just actually does not exist, and that's why it was denied, because you can't support someth

Information & Ethics committee  It is a very busy department, obviously, in all areas but particularly in this area, with subsection 15(1) likely applying to a lot of things that happen in the Department of Foreign Affairs. But the Information Commissioner has a complaint, and they will rule on those complaints

Information & Ethics committee  So it would be further up the authority ladder that this would happen.

Information & Ethics committee  What does delegated authority mean to a staff member, then? I asked this previously.

Information & Ethics committee  Okay. All your ATIP people are familiar, then, with these access to information guidelines from the Treasury Board.

Information & Ethics committee  Maybe you can explain to us what “delegated authority” means. What does that mean in terms of dealing with these issues?

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Okay, so you have delegated authority. Is that correct?

Information & Ethics committee  And that's where it stops?

Information & Ethics committee  There has been some view from some, and I think you were fairly clear in your opening statement, that there has been no political interference on this particular file or any other access to information issue that you have been familiar with in your career as a government official

Information & Ethics committee  There has also been discussion, and I think it's obvious that there was some confusion on the wording, that when somebody makes a request for a global report, the interpretation of that was that there was one human issues report that dealt with the whole world; that doesn't actua

Information & Ethics committee  And that is not the case in these reports.