Information & Ethics committee  It is not applicable. To me the biggest problem right now, as far as the government is concerned, is information management. We are living in a digital age and the people in the government or the institutions are making decisions through email. There are a lot of email exchanges

Information & Ethics committee  It is everyone's responsibility and the law does not allow us to erase the company's information. The current problem is that no one sorts or cleans up the information. Decisions should not be made through email either. Decisions should be made with the help of documents, as the

Information & Ethics committee  There's no cost to them.

Information & Ethics committee  Most of the people we deal with are satisfied with the office's services. Of course, no one is ever happy with the turnaround times. But, as you say, the office is here to uphold access to information and ensure compliance with the act. In many cases, we're able to resolve the c

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not aware of any such cases. There are cases that end up in court after the documents are disclosed, of course, but I don't think that's based on my recommendations or my office's findings.

Information & Ethics committee  That's sort of the system we've put in place. Right now, we have a triage team that looks at requests as they come in and figures out if we can resolve them. I would say that it's much easier to resolve a case when the analyst from the institution has just finalized the file and

Information & Ethics committee  Right now, of the 60 investigator positions, only five are held by external consultants.

Information & Ethics committee  Those are staff from corporate services, communications and legal services.

Information & Ethics committee  That would be ideal. But if Parliament passes all the provisions concerning the act that appear in the bill currently under study, we would need much more than that. The Senate has suggested amendments we weren't aware of. That could have a big practical impact on us.

Information & Ethics committee  It would hurt not only my office's credibility, but the government's credibility as well. Access to information has become a quasi-constitutional right, because we want Canadians to have access to information so they can question certain institutional decisions and ultimately ha

Information & Ethics committee  That's not part of my mandate. It's the government that should take on this project. But I would say that there are definitely needs in that respect. Several institutional coordinators carried out a study in collaboration with the Treasury Board. They looked at the possibility of

Information & Ethics committee  That's right.

Information & Ethics committee  The new act will apply to new complaints only.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Sure.