Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll ask our legal adviser on the recommendation of the Minister. Is it my understanding that if I have a right to get certain information in any other act of this government and that act conflicts with this

act, this would not allow me to get the same information, this act would win. In fact, I would not be able to get the information I requested.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a bit of a difficult question to answer without a specific example of what act you would be referring to. Most of the exceptions to disclosure contained within this legislation are discretionary. In other words, the head of a public body has the discretion whether to release the record or not.

Some of the exceptions to disclosure here are mandatory, for example, personal information of a third party. There's a statement saying you can't disclose personal information if it's going to invade somebody else's privacy. But even that mandatory caveat from disclosure is accepted if the disclosure of that information is authorized by another act of this Legislature.

So it depends on the type of information you would be looking for. I'm not sure if that answers your question. Most of the information is discretionary so it would be difficult for somebody to say you're allowed to have it in another act, and yet there's a discretionary right here. The information that is mandatory, that you cannot disclose, for example, personal information, the exception to that disclosure is if that information is authorized by another act.

I think what we would need is an example in an act saying you're allowed to have information in this act and you're not allowed to have it under the access bill, so that we could compare the two to see if it falls into the categories within the act as either a mandatory or discretionary exception to disclosure.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then I would ask our legal advisor, is section 4(2) the normal clause in that when we're creating a bill we make certain clauses that prevail over other acts? Thank you.

This type of clause would be very standard in access to information legislation. It's standard in the type of legislation that's meant to govern across a broad area. Just to make sure you don't accidentally create a conflict, you would do as we've done here, which is give this act priority over other acts. So it is very standard in this type of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The dialogue between Mr. Allooloo and Mr. Kakfwi and Ms. MacPherson's explanation will definitely put zero unemployment to the lawyers of the NWT. That's just a comment, Mr. Chairman. I think it would be very good. We have to put down unemployment and I think we're hitting the wrong people.

Mr. Chairman, like Mr. Allooloo, I find it very difficult as some of these acts are old and have been amended, changed and made more suitable to people of the Northwest Territories. According to Ms. MacPherson, because this is an old typical information act clause, section 4(2)...I don't know...I guess I respect my elders a little bit more than the younger people in terms of experience, accuracy and wisdom, that the older acts sometimes are not perfect at first, but they're amended and changed until it is more acceptable to the majority of the population. At least they'd be a little bit more consistent. This particular section is very new and it's already overriding or prevailing over other acts that are old.

Maybe it's just a misunderstanding. I'm a little leery about the Child Welfare Act, adoption, social assistance, health care that there are exceptions here that some personal stuff will not be released to the public or to the proponent for the information. However, who is going to decide, ultimately maybe the courts, which has more weight -- this new information act overriding the other acts or the other access right protected or other disclosure prohibitions under another act. It confuses me more than a little.

I think, what we'll have to do in this case...I would like to ask the Minister, even if this act overrides or prevails over other acts, is there a plan already by the department to study this further so that grandfathered or older acts are not downplayed by this particular clause?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clause 5 says that a record might be provided but that certain information that is exempted may be severed. What would this look like? Would it look like the documents we see from other jurisdictions with great black blobs in them where a felt pen or some black object has been used to strike out chunks of the document? Is that what we'd get?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I like section 5, subsection 1, "A person who makes a request under section 6 has right of access to any record in the custody or under the control of a public body." It is my understanding that any person, either unilingual Dene or unilingual Inuit, will have the same access, in the same timely fashion, as a person who is able to speak English. That is my understanding.

It is subsection 2 that I'm not very comfortable with, "But, where that information can reasonably be served from a record..." My understanding is that "reasonably" could mean if the information is not translated into the Dene language or Inuktitut language. The term "reasonable" may be used by a public body. I'm not very comfortable with that.

Since we have the Access to Information Act -- if it is passed by this public government -- any person, either unilingual or bilingual, should have the same right to information in the same timely manner. Thank you.