Thank you. I don't want the Minister to misunderstand. I think it's good that the government put forward one concept of how much it's going to cost. My point is that I don't necessarily agree with that cost. I have been consistent with this bill. I am going to support the bill, but it doesn't mean that I have to necessarily agree with a certain approach that the department is contemplating with the administration of the bill.
Again, I think it is not just a matter of shaving a little bit off of it. It is dependent on how you look at it. If the Minister is correct, as he probably is, that the costs will be driven by public demand, then a lot of that public demand is driven by how open the government is before problems get to the Commissioner. I would guess that a very good proportion of complaints that the Commissioner will get could be dealt with earlier if the deputy ministers are given strong direction to give out information. The problem is that if you are going to funnel it all through this one office, as it were, and you are going to need more and more people to do it. Rather than do that, the thought is to use the strengths you already have in the people you already have in government, to support the Commissioner.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel, I don't think, and you don't have to set up a specific -- I mean, all we are talking about is giving out government information. We are talking about giving out the information that they have. We are not talking about them creating new information, so the very departments that have the information surely, with some fairly simple guidelines, should be able to put it out.
What happens now, when you look at some of the freedom of information legislation in Ottawa and other places, is that it has become more of a hassle because now you have to have a whole group of people to look through every piece of information and sort of decide what is good and what's bad. I mean, a lot of it is common sense. We are a small jurisdiction, and if occasionally, we send out the instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb, well, that will happen occasionally. But, with all due respect to our government, there is really not a lot that we do that is really going to have a dramatic impact on the world if it gets out. I mean, let it go.
My point then, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, is could we just relook at the way of doing it, and I don't think we have to follow the model that has been put forward in southern Canada, which, I might say, hasn't worked particularly well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.