Information & Ethics committee  There were a number of institutions—like CBC, Canada Post, the National Arts Centre and a number of others—that came under the act. The courts, many agencies of Parliament, the House of Commons, the Senate and so on all became subject to the act, and CBC was on top of that. That

Information & Ethics committee  Exactly.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have any statistics to see how often...or what guidelines the IC has given herself. As to how to use this power, I have a sense—and it's an opinion—that she's acted in a timid fashion, maybe as she should, so that people could begin to understand. Basically, using a power

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much.

Information & Ethics committee  My answer to you for that question, which I've published in my Macdonald-Laurier Institute article, is that the OIC, first and foremost, would be given a one-year limit to decide on the given complaint—one year. If within one year they haven't decided or they haven't completed it

Information & Ethics committee  Last year, the 145,000 requests being made basically brought the system to a halt. I don't know if the significant increase in complaints all result from the same.... They probably do. Now the Information Commissioner has 10,000 complaints from last year, so something is amiss.

Information & Ethics committee  I think it will substantially reduce this sudden increase, both in complaints and requests, and have a beneficial impact. When I say it increased by 52% this year, before this year there were still a high number. Removing them from it will probably bring the volume of requests mo

Information & Ethics committee  I think the OIC has a big enough job to investigate complaints, and there are a sufficient number of them, about 6,000. Given its backlog, it wants to concentrate, to the greatest extent possible, all of its resources on investigating these. I don't see the need to provide the In

Information & Ethics committee  The remedy is with the Information Commissioner. You must have the ability to put a request in, and if your request comes as part of a pattern in a given department on a given subject with a given number of requests, then the Information Commissioner should have the ability to sa

Information & Ethics committee  More than any other, section 20 is the one that has been critically examined by the courts, which have considered all possible interpretations. The act contains a mechanism for handling third party information. If a request involves information provided to the department by a thi

Information & Ethics committee  I think it's a mixture of the two. The courts know and respect the ultimate purpose of the Access to Information Act, which is to make information public. However, the rights of third parties must be respected and certain secrets, including trade secrets, must be protected. The

Information & Ethics committee  There are still some who are exempt, but not many. Over the past 10 years, more and more public organizations, including the CBC and Canada Post, have become subject to it. And, as you know, parts of the House of Commons, the Senate and the courts are now subject to the act. The

Information & Ethics committee  Not at the moment. It's not something that I have paid particular attention to. I've come to live with this situation and have come to expect that some of those are excluded from disclosure. However, if you look at the access regime as being allegedly universal, then I would te

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think so. I would say the problem is universal. In Canada, it's the same for a firm as it is for a public servant. Not all requests a public servant receives are equally important or of equal priority. Some emails are just friendly communications, depending on the situati

Information & Ethics committee  Annual seminars in all departments would remind them that one of their legal responsibilities is to comply with the Access to Information Act, which has quasi-constitutional value. Public servants have a duty to the public, who pay their salaries. It was Parliament that wanted t