Information & Ethics committee  I haven't seen any impact specifically with respect to the Ministry of Digital Government.

Information & Ethics committee  There are more demands than ever.

Information & Ethics committee  What I'm referring to is making sure that after a meeting, for example, minutes are taken and saved properly so they are easy to retrieve and find. Right now we are in an environment of electronic documents and meetings over Teams. If nobody is taking the time to properly document what's happening, the decisions that are being made, and putting that in a place where the next analyst coming after you will find it, the right to access doesn't exist because there are no records.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't know, because institutions have their own rules right now. I believe it's pretty much hybrid everywhere in government. I don't know.

Information & Ethics committee  At the beginning of COVID, it was really difficult to work and to do investigations, because most analysts didn't have access to their servers or to any information. Now we're saying that COVID is not an excuse anymore. You should have access to your server, to documents, and the OPI should be able to give you the information.

Information & Ethics committee  No. The TBS would maybe have that information, but that's not something that we investigate.

Information & Ethics committee  I always believe in that, but it's totally not within my jurisdiction. If they are protected somehow.... Definitely we need protection, but it's not within access to information per se.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't know how the institutions are treating these requests. They're not supposed to look at who's asking for the information. In terms of statistics, I know 65% of all requests are being made by the public in general, which was surprising to me. When I became commissioner, I thought for sure that journalists would be the biggest part, or political parties.

Information & Ethics committee  There's definitely a difference between the United States and Canada in terms of declassification of documents. They have a program. Every 20 years, documents that are secret or top secret go through a review. If they are declassified, they are a lot easier to—

Information & Ethics committee  You're touching on another recommendation I made in my submission, which is to legislate the duty to document. Without records, as you just mentioned, there's no access. Right now we have a policy that is sometimes followed and sometimes not followed. It's becoming more and more difficult to know what is being discussed and what is being decided with a hybrid model of work.

Information & Ethics committee  We have a recommendation as well that the Government of Canada should have a program, whether it's 15 years, 20 years or 50 years. Pick a number. Right now we have none, so—

Information & Ethics committee  Claiming the exemptions provided in the Access to Information Act should always be the exception. There are several criteria. Often, we see that two criteria apply, but not the third. Unfortunately, the investigation that is needed to reach that conclusion sometimes takes two or three years.

Information & Ethics committee  There are a lot of complaints about that agency relating to immigration applications, as there are in the case of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. In both cases, they tend to be complaints relating to delays in processing access to information requests rather than to the exemptions claimed.

Information & Ethics committee  All of the institutions can improve, but given the number of access to information requests it received, the Agency is very innovative and takes access to information seriously. It employs 250 access to information analysts, double the number of employees in my office.

Information & Ethics committee  Once again, each institution is different. Health Canada, for example, is making huge efforts. Since one of the things people frequently ask about is the results of laboratory tests, the department is starting to publish them, in response to that interest. Institutions could look at the requests they receive each year and determine what ten kinds of information are most requested, in order to publish them.