Information & Ethics committee  Yes, to the best of the requester's ability. Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  That's correct. The duty to assist would require the institution to work with the requester to try to fill in any blanks.

Information & Ethics committee  That is already in the Access to Information Act.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, in subsection 4(2.1). It's set out in the law now.

Information & Ethics committee  That's the intent of asking for that information from requesters, and without proposed paragraph 6.1(1)(a), that situation that you're asking about—

Information & Ethics committee  Then that's correct.

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, we have counsel here today, so if you give me a second, we'll get you an answer for that. I just want to make sure that we have the best answer possible for you.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. The best answer we can give you is that the duty to assist would require the ATIP coordinator to clarify with the requester, to try to get as much information as possible there, and then they'd have an obligation to proceed with the best

Information & Ethics committee  If the request would be impossible to fulfill, but.... There's already policy direction, which would pertain in the new world as well, which would say that if you have enough information to fulfill the request, the request has to be fulfilled, but—

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much for the question. To clarify my role, I've been involved in the development of the bill, as opposed to making decisions about access to information requests. We have another unit at the Treasury Board Secretariat that is responsible for that. So I can respond

Information & Ethics committee  We have a very large set of policies that exist right now, as well as a manual that we provide. It's actually available online, so we can provide the information to the committee on that.