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OTTAWA — Ensuring Canadians have access to federal information will mean more — and sometimes difficult — public scrutiny, but ultimately it will lead to better government, the prime minister says.

The Liberals will conduct a “proper review” of the decades-old Access to Information Act with the aim of figuring out “what is actually going to work,” Justin Trudeau said this week in a wide-ranging roundtable interview with The Canadian Press.

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He reaffirmed the new government’s commitment to modernizing the federal access law, which has changed little since coming into effect on July 1, 1983, when Trudeau’s father was prime minister.

It was an era when steel filing cabinets full of paper greatly outnumbered personal computers holding digital files, and many complain the access law has not kept pace with technological change or greater expectations of transparency.

The legislation allows applicants who pay $5 to request information in federal files, such as briefing notes, studies, correspondence and expense claims.