Information & Ethics committee  Many things could be done. If I had to pick one specific thing, I would say greater restraints on the weaponizing of the consultation process. Departments are using the consultation process to kick the can down the road. The department that's consulted takes years to respond, yet

Information & Ethics committee  I wasn't involved in any of those consultations.

Information & Ethics committee  I'd have to leave that to the other witnesses. It really is outside my area of expertise.

Information & Ethics committee  I think there is—

Information & Ethics committee  I think there is some room to narrow the exemptions and be much more specific, especially given the passage of time. That is sort of theoretically taken into account in the act as it stands, but it really isn't exercised to any great extent. I certainly see a need to protect th

Information & Ethics committee  I mean, I think that's a possibility, but the likelihood is really quite low. You can't base decisions on releasability only in terms of time, but I think time is a very important factor in that consideration. There certainly will be some things that continue to be sensitive ov

Information & Ethics committee  Exactly, and I think that's why it's so important to have a systematic process for the declassification of records after a given period of time. Then you would have people who are familiar with these records and all of these issues who could handle records from a variety of depar

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, that's a huge question, and it's exactly what the declassification project has been working on for the last couple of years. I think there needs to be, at the first instance, a much clearer idea within government of what is actually sensitive and what isn't. Right now t

Information & Ethics committee  In the U.S., it's the Director of National Intelligence. They have a much more robust structure for organizing their community.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. You were talking about some other mechanism for addressing large requests. I must say that I have been somewhat critical of LAC, and I think it's for good reason. At the same time, I think LAC has been trying, with some positive steps. With these very large requests, I th

Information & Ethics committee  I can't comment on that directly.

Information & Ethics committee  I must say that there are problems with any of these systems in any country. I've been pointing to the U.S. system. There are still major problems with that system. I guess it's a matter of degree and relative standings. I think the Americans are doing many of the things well.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. There are ways in which departments frequently use the mechanisms within the current process to sabotage responses. In particular, for the kind of records I'm dealing with, it involves essentially weaponizing the consultation process. Library and Archives is basically told

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely, and there are various mechanisms to do that. Clearly, it's recognized that many documents are overclassified. That's been recognized for many years, but the practice still continues. I'm not sure what practical steps can be taken. It really is a policy decision to r

Information & Ethics committee  That gets to very complicated questions of file management and that sort of thing. As a researcher, I would appreciate that. I think it would be very difficult, given the size of the organizations and the range of records. I don't have any easy fix for how this information woul