People are apparently far more curious about CBC than other Crown corporations, and have recently flooded the network and its French sister with so many requests under the Access to Information Act that the pubcaster is ‘beefing up’ its office in Ottawa in order to keep up with the demand.

CBC and Radio-Canada came under the Act, which allows queries into government operations, in September. Since then, it has received some 500 requests from the public and various organizations — more than the entire Department of Industry handles in a year, and ‘substantially higher than anticipated.’

The requests ‘have touched every one of our departments. A lot of the requests require a lot of research and are very time consuming,’ according to a spokesperson, making it impossible to respond within the 30-day deadline.

The office is bringing in a consultant and may hire one or two people to complement the existing staff of three full-timers and a manager. The nature of the requests cannot be released.

The nets say it will take ‘a number of months’ to revamp the office and to catch up with the backlog.