Merci, Madame la Presidente. Today, I am going to return to the issue I first raised in the winter session regarding the implementation of amendments to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. As I pointed out then, a lot of good work and cooperation went into the new legislation with excellent changes introduced as a result of extensive consultation with GNWT departments, public bodies, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and the general public. Improvements included the reduction of mandatory exemptions, the power of the Information and Privacy Commissioner was also increased to allow the issuance of binding orders, and the legislation will apply to municipal governments as suggested over many years.
Eight months on from my last statement and questions and 15 months after the passage of the amendments, we are still waiting for the legislation to be brought into force. These changes are supposed to also include fee reductions, training, identification of classes of records that do not require an ATIPP application, and many more. At the passage of the bill in June 2019 and as result of my questions, the then Minister of Justice committed to: reduce the initial fee for general information requests from $25 to $10; provide 10 hours of free processing for general requests; photocopy charges were to be dropped to 10 cents per page; and the personal information requests information free pages were to be increased from 100 to 200.
These basic and simple adjustments have not yet been made. It's not clear why the delays continue. We have to pin our hopes and fears on the new Minister of Justice to finally bring this legislation into force. I'll have questions for the Minister of Justice later today on when he will bring this long ordeal to an end and finally bring the new and better Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act into force. Mahsi, Madame la Presidente.