Information & Ethics committee  Well, as I said before, we need to reduce the brick wall around cabinet secrecy. We need to reduce delays. There are things you can do legislatively that would help reduce delays. Delays are probably the biggest problem. There's a section in the act, section 21, that refers to

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I'd love to. She was given so-called order-making power in Bill C-58 in 2019, but it wasn't what she had argued for. It was a watered-down version, so her orders do not have the same effect as a Federal Court judge's order. A Federal Court judge's order cannot be ignored.

Information & Ethics committee  They should be on par with those of a Federal Court judge, yes. That will bring into play sanctions.

Information & Ethics committee  To ignore a Federal Court order is to risk being thrown in jail. There is a range of sanctions—fines, whatever—but the thing is that they're taken seriously, whereas the Information Commissioner's orders can be ignored without consequence.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it undermines the authority of the Information Commissioner absolutely, and when they go to court to challenge her order, that judge can hear the case from the very beginning. The judge isn't looking specifically at her decision-making. The judge is looking at the whole cas

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  It should. The commissioner does not have that power in the act as it stands now, but she should be empowered to collect statistics and report to Parliament on the recalcitrant departments that are ignoring her orders.

Information & Ethics committee  No, nothing significant. It would be a major leap forward if she got the power that a Federal Court judge has.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I don't know if you've read the report that came out last December from Treasury Board, but it's almost indecipherable. It's written in a bureaucratese that's not meant to connect with ordinary Canadians. I think it's full of obfuscation and dodges.

Information & Ethics committee  It was that they had not lived up to their responsibilities to listen to users and others who are telling them what's wrong with the system and to use the solutions that were offered to them. The minister said last week that it was all a misunderstanding, that they had never in

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I do. I think the system could be digitized and made more available for statistical analysis. If every department had to record every step of the progress of an access to information request in a system that could be accessed by statisticians, I think we would have a much

Information & Ethics committee  As a point of accuracy, I didn't use the word “corruption” in my opening remarks.

Information & Ethics committee  Okay, well, last time I was here, I gave you four. If you want the number one that I gave last time, it was to reduce cabinet secrecy. It won't fix the system, but it will go a long way toward that goal.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry, but I can't do a quick answer.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.