Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first issue, the issue of access, is really the simple issue of trying to find out something. There could be something you want to find out, maybe something on a piece of paper that you have been wanting to get and you could not get it. Perhaps a report that is, for some reason, not being made public. Those are the kinds of things that would be covered by access to information. However, there may be a role or a function that has nothing to do with this, where for example, someone feels they have been badly treated by the government because of the way someone has decided to interpret a policy. The constituent is very upset because he or she cannot understand why they are being treated this way by the government. The ombudsman deals with complaints from the public about the way they are being treated, simply because they feel they are in the hands of the bureaucracy and they have no recourse. That is the second problem we see has to be resolved somehow.
The priority for us was this one of trying to get information that people feel they have a right to have. The legislative action paper we are proposing, it maybe that once that has been gone through in some detail, it may be decided that they will not proceed with it. At least we can look at the nature of the problem as it relates to the problems people have with the government that is supposed to serve them.