Thank you.
The amendment deals with coming forward with a new Access to Information Act. What I have been saying, Madam Chair, is that this committee, as you may recall from my presentation here, came to the conclusion that we could not do that. If the government were to be so moved, it is quite unlikely, during the average life of a minority Parliament, that this could ever achieve anything.
I don't want to say how I'm voting, because I like to vote after we've had all the discussion. But my sense right now is that this subamendment would simply go into a black hole, and we would never see anything. That's my own view, and I wanted to express it. That's why I left the chair. It was so I could say that and have an opinion.
I'm hoping that members want to see some changes. The reason Mr. Marleau came forward with his quick fixes was for that very reason. We have no time, or we won't have enough time, for the committee to do a whole review and then have the government do a bill. So let's try to at least get some things that would accomplish two things: one, address administrative efficiencies in the act, and two, deal with some of the legislative components. Those are the two areas of difficulty that have been expressed to us by that commission.
The reason I've taken this unusual step of leaving the chair--it occurs sometimes--is that I'm concerned about the direction we're going in. I'm concerned that we have entered into a situation where our relationship with the Minister of Justice, who is responsible for this act, is being eroded in terms of quality. I know the minister personally. I respect him. I've read carefully what he's written in his letters, and I try to understand the underlying thinking. The words on the paper reflect a lot of other consultation and stuff that we don't have on paper.
You assume good faith, but there is a problem. The government is not in a position, for whatever reason, to come forward with the John Reid open government act. If this motion goes forward with the amendment, I'm pretty sure about what the outcome will be. That's why I want to make this intervention. If this amendment passes, this matter leaves our desk. It leaves the order of business of this committee, and we wait until next March to see. But I'm pretty sure that we won't see a bill.
I don't want it to end like that. I want to appeal to the committee to reconsider the decision we made at the beginning of this process. Rather than try to do the impossible, which would be a full review of the Access to Information Act--to do it properly would take a couple of years--consider that the quick fixes are important and that maybe what we should be doing is paring them down. Let's see what the committee, not Mr. Marleau, is recommending as quick fixes. Let's see whether we have one or two solid positions we would accept and recommend to the minister and seek, at least, amendments to the act. That's the test. The test of whether there's good faith is whether the minister is prepared to accept and implement changes this committee would unanimously agree to, based on its knowledge and understanding of the act.
I referred earlier to this discussion paper. I am a little concerned that we don't have it. We're going to keep looking. I think what I'm going to do, if we can't find it by the end of the day, is ask the minister if he could provide us with this discussion paper that we're unable to find. I think it's very relevant, because that's the whole basis on which he said to us that we should consider those recommendations on this discussion paper, and we don't have it. If that's his view, I think we should respect his view, but I think we should look at it before we take a decision.
Chair, I think I've gone on long enough. I think the members understand where I'm coming from. I simply don't like where I think this is going to end up, and I hope we would consider trying something that would get us in a position that would help us to reaffirm a positive relationship with the minister and see if there is any common ground on some modest amendment or two with regard to the Access to Information Act.