Information & Ethics committee  No, typically cabinet would be presented with options: “If you do this, then it's this. If you do B, then it's C.” It's not only possible, but it's common that cabinets review information that is not urging a particular course. It's the job of cabinet to make the decision. These

Information & Ethics committee  Bring political aides into the same arena as all public servants, so they have to be held accountable for their bad behaviour in withholding or destroying records.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, they don't. They merely refer it to the RCMP, and then the Public Prosecution Service. We do have some arm's-length institutions that I think would take care of that conflict of interest.

Information & Ethics committee  This is the double frustration of being a journalist. You're not only waiting for answers from access to information, but you're waiting literally weeks sometimes for answers from departments and ministers' offices. I would be waiting at least as long as you are.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, you do need to know, because you need to know whether there's been undue influence on cabinet by corporations, developers, or whatever. Of course, that's part of the concern that citizens have about their governments. Are they listening to the wrong people instead of citizen

Information & Ethics committee  You were just talking about cabinet confidences. I think cabinet could proactively release the data and background information upon which it made its decision. They could do that soon after making the decision, rather than letting us wait 20 years. That's an example of a delibera

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I don't have access to RCMP files. The RCMP investigated that case. I know only that they announced that they would not lay charges against that individual. However, I understand that the problem was proving criminal intent. There's a section in the act about criminal penal

Information & Ethics committee  This case is interesting because it had to do with a political aide to a minister. One quirk of the access act is that the Information Commissioner, when she discovers some bad behaviour by a political aide, cannot ask the justice minister, the Attorney General, to investigate be

Information & Ethics committee  The problem with proactive disclosure—as it sits in the law and Bill C-58, which changed the access act—is that it defines a very small number of documents, so-called ministerial documents, that are going to be released on the government's timetable, with no watchdog. To me, pro

Information & Ethics committee  I believe in protecting deliberations that deserve protection. That's all I can say. It's sort of a hypothetical question. I'm not sure what kind of in camera discussion you're talking about. I'm not opposed to the protection of cabinet deliberations. I just think the system we

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not sure I see the connection there. To me, as a journalist, access to information is a way to avoid opinion journalism or journalism that goes “he said, he said”, and you try to work out something in between. When you call it “blogger journalism”, I assume you mean opinion

Information & Ethics committee  I can't be precise, but it would be in the order of 10 years.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm pretty sure it was the Privy Council Office.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. We call it “deadline abuse”. Some departments, like the RCMP, don't even acknowledge the receipt of your request. There's no clock even ticking for some limbo requests. I think there's a reflexive mode in departments to automatically take the longest stretch that they can ge

Information & Ethics committee  No, I don't. I believe in privacy rights, for example. I do think some deliberations of government need to be protected for open and honest discussion. No, I'm not being unreasonable. I don't think it should be open to everyone. I think there are good cases to be made for protect