Merci, Madam la Presidente. In June 2019, the Assembly passed historic changes to the Access to Information Protection of Privacy Act that had been in the works since 2012. The then-Minister of Justice worked well with standing committee, and we now have very good legislation; in fact, it may be the best in Canada. There was extensive consultation with GNWT departments, public bodies, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, as well as the general public. Feedback received during the course of these consultations, including the Information and Privacy Commissioner's extensive submission, and recommendations identified by the standing committee were thoroughly considered and informed the development of the bill. Mandatory exemptions were reduced, the jurisdiction of the Information and Privacy Commissioner was clarified giving that officer the ability to issue binding orders, and the act will apply to municipal governments, as suggested by several parties over many years.
What is not clear is the Minister's plans for implementing the recommendations as documented in the November 2016 "what we heard" report from public consultations. These issues included fee reductions, training, identification of classes of records that do not require an ATIPP application, and many more.
When I asked the former Minister of Justice about fee reductions on June 6, 2019, he responded by saying:
- the initial fee for general requests would be dropped from $25 to $10;
- there would be 10 free hours of processing for general requests;
- photocopy charges would be dropped to 10 cents per page; and
- personal information charges would be kept at $25, but the number of free pages would be increased from 100 to 200.
Madam Speaker, we're still waiting for these changes. I will have questions for the Minister of Justice on the next steps of implementing the amendments passed in the last Assembly to the Access to Information and Protections of Privacy Act. Mahsi, Madam Speaker.