Procedure and House Affairs committee  I can't really comment on what the government is intending to do in that respect because I was not consulted. I am not aware of any of the details. To be perfectly frank, as Information Commissioner, I would be very sorry to see any increase in the cost of access to information,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said, I cannot comment on what the government is intending to do because I have no details in that regard. The international trend is different, because the Internet really facilitates the whole process.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In my opinion, increasing fees for access to information to $5 or more is not a good public policy decision. How high will it go? How much will it cost to write a cheque to the government? I think there are other ways of doing things if we want to have some control over the way

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This comes back to your colleague's question. The Access to Information Act does not say that you have to disclose every piece of information to everybody all the time. There are certain legitimate exceptions. And they are necessary, because there has to be protection for persona

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Every case is different.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My total budget is roughly $12 million--

Procedure and House Affairs committee  --including all the employee benefits and so on.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Do you mean whether the documents are Cabinet confidences or not? Is that what you mean?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I understand. That is my position. To my knowledge, it has not been tested.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, that is why I am advocating that I should be authorized to review them. It's an area for legislative reform, but the situation is now such that the Babcock ruling is part of the caselaw. There is also the ruling in the Ethyl case. The court gave details as to the i

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In my opinion, yes. That's why we talk about government transparency and open government. I think that—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Like Mr. Walsh, it feels as though it's been 20 years.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's been almost a year.