Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps I could just provide a quick answer to this question, and then I'm afraid I am going to have to leave. I apologize for that. Similarly to Quebec, in Ontario, if information was disclosed improperly, we would have the ability to conduct an investigation, either because we

Information & Ethics committee  I agree completely with those comments. We oversee the public sector privacy legislation as well as access to information legislation. I think it works very effectively having those combined in one agency. That at least has been our experience. I think there are times when there'

Information & Ethics committee  I'll be honest with you. I can't say that I have taken a position on all of her 83 recommendations. I think there is a commonality to the recommendations that I definitely support. I've spoken about the order-making authority that the commissioner should have. Broadening the sc

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I can speak from Ontario's experience. I think there are two instances at play here. One is an instance where an individual puts in a request that's overly broad, and I think these bring some [Technical difficulty—Editor] ability of an institution or government to charge a f

Information & Ethics committee  In Ontario, there is no formula for how much funding makes you a public body or covered by the act. That is generally left up to regulation. The government bodies are covered by the act by regulation. Ontario has done a pretty good job of filling some gaps over the last few year

Information & Ethics committee  In Ontario fees are applicable in two circumstances. One is the initial fee for submitting a FOI request. In Ontario it's nominal. I think it could easily be eliminated. It strikes me as being more of an administrative burden than anything else. Institutions can also charge a fee

Information & Ethics committee  Ontario similarly does not have a duty to document in its legislation. We did a very significant investigation a number of years ago into deleted emails. One of the main recommendations coming out of that is that there should be a duty to document. At a minimum, I believe the de

Information & Ethics committee  I can start again. I did mention that the exemption for advice and recommendations has been an issue. Generally, in terms of the advice and recommendations provided by a public servant to either senior public servants or to the political level, I think all of our legislation has

Information & Ethics committee  I did mention in my comments that delay is not as significant a problem in our jurisdiction as it is federally. I put that down to our ability to bring some finality and conclusion to a refusal to issue a decision or an overly broad time extension by issuing an order. What would

Information & Ethics committee  In Ontario we do have an exemption for cabinet documents. It's not one we deal with a lot, but I agree with Diane, I think for the most part it strikes the right balance. I think it's reasonable that cabinet can have deliberations that have confidentiality attached. Our cabinet

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. My name is Brian Beamish. I'm the information and privacy commissioner for the Province of Ontario. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you while you continue to review the federal Access to Information Act. I'm really pleas