Information & Ethics committee  As I said, Mr. Chairman, there has been such a constant increase. Every year it increases by about 5% or 6%. It has been very regular in terms of an incremental increase every year. There hasn't been any specific spike that I can see from the statistics. Maybe just.... People are becoming more aware of the legislation, perhaps.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, definitely after it became subject to the Access to Information Act, the CBC received a significant amount of complaints. I don't exactly know their level of requests, but in the first year I think it was 536, and in the second year it was 221. I stand to be corrected.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have met with the Clerk of the Privy Council. I've met with thePresident of the Treasury Board. I've met with Mr. Cannon, as well as with senior officials from all of these agencies and departments. I have not met with all of the institutions' representatives that are covered by the report card, but I will definitely do so.

Information & Ethics committee  It essentially is related to the expertise that the institution believes rests with senior officials. That's why also at Public Safety they have decided to exercise their delegation of authority that way. There is nothing in the law or in Treasury Board mandatory policy that says delegations of authority have to be done in one specific way.

Information & Ethics committee  Inappropriate levels of approval would be if that results in additional delays or a whether it results in a reduction in the amount of disclosure that should be disclosed under the legislation. These would be, in my view, inappropriate approval levels. What I have found in the report cards is that I have concerns, because in some institutions the delegation of authority is either widely spread across the organization or has several vertical layers, which could cause delays.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Of course. The president was a she at the time, yes, she was a senior official, of course.

Information & Ethics committee  If that's what you heard me say, that's not what I wanted to say.

Information & Ethics committee  The question is whether it should be such an outlier or not; it's the same thing for other institutions such as CIDA, for instance, that have very long average completion times. I don't think they should have such long average completion times.

Information & Ethics committee  They would. Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  It's a very good point, Mr. Chairman. Part of the problem with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the statistics as a whole is that because their requests are able to be processed so quickly, it's not giving us a true picture of where the real delays are in the system. And yes, the purpose of the report cards--and the member is quite right--is to look at where the delays are, because that's what we want to improve.

Information & Ethics committee  I referred to the case that's already in the public domain, the case involving Mr. Togneri, who was the staffer for Mr. Paradis when he was the Minister of Public Works.

Information & Ethics committee  It depends on what the evidence uncovers, Mr. Chairman.

Information & Ethics committee  The average score?

Information & Ethics committee  I could. I could ask the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to provide us with that information.