Information & Ethics committee  I am not gone yet.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much for your positive comments. I appreciated them greatly. Seriously, I am most proud of having worked with absolutely exceptional people over the years. It is a working environment where all of the employees, my colleagues in management, and those at the provin

Information & Ethics committee  When I appeared before this committee, we did have a list of quick fixes, so to speak, for the first phase. That goes through quite significant amendments, a review of some of the key exemptions: advice and recommendations, the order making model, and public interest override. Th

Information & Ethics committee  It has to be Canada. It is the model that can be the best model. In Canada, I would say that if you're looking at an order making model, we definitely should look at the British Columbia model. The Ontario model is instructive, but the British Columbia model has been amended mor

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  That is correct.

Information & Ethics committee  That's correct. We don't see the records. We see a description or schedule. Based on that, sometimes we push back, and sometimes additional disclosure is made.

Information & Ethics committee  Cabinet confidences are excluded from the application of the act. So we could go—there have been cases in the past done under the Canada Evidence Act—but under our legislation it's very difficult to go to Federal Court challenging something that we haven't seen.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think that would require additional people. What is required is for us to see the records so we can determine whether cabinet confidence has been properly applied. Unless cabinet confidence exclusion becomes an exemption under the act and that generates more requests of d

Information & Ethics committee  We haven't done that comparison. As I said, it's difficult to compare. We would even almost have to do a joint comparison with the Privacy Commissioner's office, because in other countries these institutions are mostly joined. The other big consideration is that it's important

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. We've been on a continuous cycle of improvement, certainly for as long as I've been there. Just to give you a sense, when I became commissioner we had just gotten the Internet in the office, and that was 2009-10. I was the one, as assistant commissioner, who made that come i

Information & Ethics committee  We have a few complaints about the records not being provided in the appropriate format, but it's not a large percentage. It would be fewer than five or 10 a year.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it will be a tremendous failure if there are no changes to this legislation. I'm at the point where I think it's completely unacceptable for a modern democracy.

Information & Ethics committee  We did make a request to be in the budget, but we are not in the budget. We're now pursuing the same avenue that we did last year, and that's the management reserve. We're asking for less money this year. Last year we had to equip everyone with information technology. We had to

Information & Ethics committee  I have about 85 complaints that are cabinet confidences. I don't have the number of requests for cabinet confidences that are applied. There is a wrinkle there, though. Requesters often will make a request and say, “Do not include cabinet confidences”, so there is a self-discipli