Section 4 — Access to Information Act: Right to access to records

Subject to this Part, but notwithstanding any other Act of Parliament, every person who is a Canadian citizen, or a permanent resident within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , has a right to and shall, on request, be given access to any record under the control of a government institution. The Governor in Council may, by order, extend the right to be given access to records under subsection (1) to include persons not referred to in that subsection and may set such conditions as the Governor in Council deems appropriate. The head of a government institution shall, without regard to the identity of a person making a request for access to a record under the control of the institution, make every reasonable effort to assist the person in connection with the request, respond to the request accurately and completely and, subject to the regulations, provide timely access to the record in the format requested. For the purposes of this Part, any record requested under this Part that does not exist but can, subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by regulation, be produced from a machine readable record under the control of a government institution using computer hardware and software and technical expertise normally used by the government institution shall be deemed to be a record under the control of the government institution.