Information & Ethics committee  One of the interesting features of this discussion, of course, is the idea that access requests could be made electronically. That's the situation in Mexico. They have a very advanced system there with their federal law when it comes to making requests. It's not to say that access would be granted to cabinet or other records electronically.

Information & Ethics committee  Again, recognizing that the information holdings in the B.C. public sector are different from those in the federal public sector, I also note that my federal colleague has suggested a five-year review of the legislation by Parliament. And one option might be to put this on the table for that first five-year review.

Information & Ethics committee  If I might simply echo what Mr. Rankin said, I am deeply grateful to all members of the committee for having taken on this issue. It is of course critically important that Canada has a modern access to information regime and legislation to underpin it. The committee's work in this respect is very important, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share some perspective from British Columbia on the situation here, in the hope that it might be of assistance to the committee as you move forward in your deliberations.

Information & Ethics committee  If I may, I can speak to the B.C. legislation, of course. And we do have, as Mr. Tromp mentioned, an obligation in the legislation—the so-called public interest override—that applies directly to public bodies and that requires them, without delay and without access request, to disclose to the public or an affected group of people information about a risk to public health or safety.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm quite sure that regardless of what I say, the frequent users would probably argue for a volume discount. But certainly my remarks earlier were directed to a situation where you had a small number of requesters, as you just said, making a large number of the requests to the institutions.

Information & Ethics committee  You're quite correct that we don't have in British Columbia, to my knowledge, anything approaching that small a number of requesters being responsible for that large a proportion of requests. What we do have is a fairly comprehensive set of remedial provisions that allow my office, on request by a public body, to authorize that public body to not respond to requests that are frivolous or vexatious or an abuse of rights under the act, or that are systematic and that unreasonably interfere with the operations of that public body.

Information & Ethics committee  The only thing I would mention is what I referred to already, which is that when you have a citizenship or residency restriction, they're relatively easily circumvented. You can always find somebody who qualifies who will make the request for you. And I'm not sure how you would police or enforce compliance with that restriction.

Information & Ethics committee  One perspective goes back to the question of fees. It's commonly said that you don't want to see fees for access to information become a barrier to appropriate access. But a system or a regime of appropriate fee imposition rules under an access law can, to some degree, address concerns such as those you've raised, subject always to full remedial oversight by a commissioner who can relieve against inappropriately imposed fees that would improperly raise a barrier to access to information.

Information & Ethics committee  I have recommended in the past that there be a legislative duty to document here in British Columbia—not, I would argue, an onerous one by any means, but some duty on the part of public servants to record actions and decisions and reasons therefor. One can control this by prescribing certain criteria that would surround the extent of it.

Information & Ethics committee  But if you include media—

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, and I ought to. I apologize for that. I can make them available to the committee afterward, if that is the wish of the committee.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I was going to say if you include media as commercial requesters, you're probably talking about 8% of all requesters. If you take the media out, you're probably left with 4%. The vast majority of requesters under the B.C. law are actually individuals seeking access to their own information.

Information & Ethics committee  You're quite right to point out that the situation federally does differ from the situation in British Columbia in terms of the proportion of commercial requesters. Under the British Columbia system, the schedule of fees that are set out in regulations to our law enables public bodies to charge commercial requesters--requesters who make an access request for commercial purposes--the actual cost of providing access, whereas with other requesters the fees are not based on cost recovery.

Information & Ethics committee  My clear sense of the proportion of actual cost that is recovered from fees is that it is minimal. Certainly it's not substantial. I think that's for a variety of reasons. Some public bodies--and we do cover over 2,000 of them, at all levels in British Columbia--simply have a policy decision that they're not going to charge for access to information.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right, but simply to say that if people were turned away from the commissioner's office, the question would be how many more of them would be going to the Federal Court, given that it can be quite expensive to do so. I would wonder whether in fact you wouldn't see a big increase in cases there because of the costs involved.