[2] The database was shut down due to high maintenance costs and its inefficiency, as stated by the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
[3] Treasury Board President Vic Toews described the system as a tool used to inhibit freedom of information: If anyone made a request that was considered sensitive, the request was shipped to the appropriate Liberal minister.
"[3] While the government cited Alastair Roberts, a Syracuse University political scientist, as a critic of CAIRS,[2] Roberts publicly commented that he was not in favour of shutting down the system, saying "They really don't care what I think about CAIRS or any other aspect of ATI [access to information]...[i]f they did they would have taken my advice about CAIRS a few years ago when I said they ought to switch on the capacity to make the entire thing publicly accessible.
[6] Roberts acquired digital "monthly reports" from the Treasury Board of the "requests" made through the CAIRS.
[6] The reports were unusable due to the lack of capacity to search the document, therefore rendering Roberts' database ineffective.