Information & Ethics committee  It was a pleasure.

Information & Ethics committee  Access to information is basic for Canadians' trust. If Canadians don't trust that they can obtain the information they're entitled to, it ultimately will result in a lack of trust in this government and our institutions. If I don't have access to documents that nobody else can

Information & Ethics committee  Commissioner McEvoy just tabled a report on that, and you will see that 80% of the requests have been reduced because of that fee. It's only five dollars more than at the federal level, but it had a huge impact on access requests. The government has to decide whether that's the p

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  It's always been very difficult to change the culture of government. When it comes to access to information, we can undeniably see that it's easier to hide or withhold information than to simply disclose it. Some departments are doing better than others, but we can see that there

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  Again, it really depends on the minister, deputy ministers and directors. We see a difference in some institutions, where managers are very involved, ask a lot of questions about access to information and make it a priority. The problem is that it's specific to each institution a

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I certainly do. I am not the only one whose budget is determined by the government right now. It also sets the budget of the Auditor General, who is an officer of Parliament too. I believe that the budgets of the officers of Parliament should be debated before a parliamentary co

Information & Ethics committee  I can't confirm that, but I can tell you that Canada has an independence mechanism for certain officers of Parliament, like the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer. The mechanism already exists in Canada, but it doesn't apply to all officers of Pa

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that's a question for the experts. It's true that people often use that exemption. On our end, the analysis criteria are clear to my analysts and me, because we run the test all the time. However, we find that in other institutions, there's often turnover among analysts,

Information & Ethics committee  We issued a report a couple of years ago on declassification. I can send you a copy. It actually gives you a great summary of what the U.K. and the United States are doing. They both have a program where, within 20 to 30 years of a document being produced, there's a declassific

Information & Ethics committee  When we're talking about ATI, it is people actually responding to requests. People have to have great people skills because they're dealing with requesters who want the information “now”, and with the institutions that have people who don't want to provide the information right a

Information & Ethics committee  You would have to ask Minister Fortier because that's one of the activities done through the Treasury Board.