Procedure and House Affairs committee  I believe the government's statistics confirm that it is indeed taking longer than before. And that does not only go back to the point at which the Conservative government took office. This is a trend that has been observed for a number of years now. I often cite these statistics

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I did not say there were no costs. There are.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is what I believe.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The questions that are found in the reference document really relate to what came out of the Supreme Court ruling in the Babcock case. Following that ruling, the Office of the Information Commissioner developed a procedure to be followed with institutions, the Secretariat and the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I tried to explain at the beginning that I obviously cannot provide advice or comment on what occurred in Parliament. That involves parliamentary process and procedures, and Mr. Walsh made that quite clear. What I am presenting today is the process used by the Office of the Comm

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It must be made by the people who have the delegated authority under the legislation. In each institution, the head of the institution has the authority to delegate within their institutions. Sometimes it's the minister, while in my office I have the authority, and in a crown cor

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay. Why don't I ask Assistant Commissioner Neill to do that one?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, not exactly. They are complaints related to cases where the institution is alleging that the information must be excluded because it is a Cabinet confidence.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's not just an excuse; it's in the Act. It may be legitimate. It's important to understand that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  When we talk about complaints being closed, that simply means that the investigations are closed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You can see that, in the first column with respect to investigations we completed, we were of the view that in ten of the cases, the information should not be excluded as a Cabinet confidence.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I stated publicly, it is my deep conviction that, under the Access to Information Act, Cabinet confidences should be subject to an exemption, and not an exclusion with the certificate process laid out in section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act. Similarly, the Office of the Commi

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, the collection of statistics and doing any comparative analysis in terms of the volume of requests across the government is the responsibility of the Treasury Board Secretariat. My office does not collect statistics. We don't have those resources, nor is it our mand

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, I'd like to say that this question is probably not being asked to the right person--

Procedure and House Affairs committee  --in the sense that I believe that access to information is essential for Canadian democracy and to hold governments accountable. We don't question how much it costs to issue pension cheques to citizens because we consider that a normal service that we provide to our citizens. I