This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Justin Trudeau Liberal
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
Defeated, as of April 1, 2015
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
This enactment amends the Parliament of Canada Act to require the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons to open its meetings, with certain exceptions, to the public. It also amends the Access to Information Act to modernize and clarify the purpose of the Act and to give the Information Commissioner the power to make compliance orders.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
When the House last took up this question, the hon. member for Victoria had six minutes remaining for his comments on the question.
The hon. member for Victoria.
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to say a lot in six minutes on an area as important as access to information, but let me do my best.
Today, was a historic day. After two hard years of deliberation, our Information Commissioner, Madame Legault, brought forth a whole variety of recommendations to improve the Access to Information Act. I say that in the context of the debate on Bill C-613 that is before us, because this bill would not go nearly as far as even a tiny way toward what the commissioner said is necessary to fix our broken open government system.
A bill that would have gone much further than that was introduced by my hon. friend, the member for Winnipeg North, under the title Bill C-567, which I had—
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Speaker, I should say the member for Winnipeg Centre. I stand corrected.
I had the pleasure of speaking on that bill, and I found that it was a fascinating bill because it would have addressed the changes required to the access to information regime in a very specific way. What it did was call for the changes that the government had suggested when it was seeking a mandate from the Canadian public. The wisdom of the bill was to limit itself to just those changes that the government said were required to fix the act. Only one of six was implemented, as I recall.
This bill before us today would do a couple of things. First, it would require the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Internal Economy to be opened by default. That is an interesting concept. Interestingly, though, retired clerk Mr. Rob Walsh says that it is entirely unnecessary. There was no need for a bill to address that because it can be done, as in all committees, by making its procedures open if it wishes to do so. The second amendment was to change the purpose clause of the Access to Information Act, something that I note the commissioner herself thought was unwise.
I commend to the House Professor Sean Holman, a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, who wrote an article about the so-called transparency act before us. Its title is revealing. It is “Are the Liberals Fooling Everyone Again?” That says quite a bit about this issue. It has, as he says, some laudable ideas, but when pressed about the concept that somehow government information would be “open by default”, which the hon. member for Papineau referred to in his remarks, Professor Holman said that the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor said that people would still have to file access to information requests to get government records. That does not suggest that big a change.
The notion that the government would be required to provide detailed rather than brief explanations on why it was opposed to the disclosure of information would, in my judgment, would simply be a speed bump along the way to withholding information. Frankly, it would just require people to push a computer button and have the regular bumf as to why this particular exception does not work.
The real guts of what is required is to fix the exemptions in the statute, which are outrageously out of date in the context of our 21st century economy. This came in before we even had computers. The exemption is where the action is. This bill is entirely silent on it. I commend to the House the excellent recommendations found in the long-awaited report by the Information Commissioner today, which will show us the road map to really provide open government in Canada. It is not this bill, I am afraid to say. Though laudable in some respects, it does not even go a tiny distance to doing what is required, which is the root-and-branch work, the hard work that she has suggested needs to be done in her report.
With that said, I do not wish to suggest that there are not some things that are important. The thing that this bill would do, which I commend, is what my hon. friend from Winnipeg tried to do with his bill, giving a power that every commissioner across the country has, which is to order disclosure and make binding orders on the government. That is something that has been sought for decades.
The Access to Information Act, after all, is three decades old. It has never had the ability to enable the commissioner to do anything more than simply recommend disclosure. It is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, whereas in the provinces an order by the information commissioner is binding on the government, subject only to judicial review. That is the law. One shall disclose what the commissioner orders.
Finally, the bill, and I give credit where credit is due, would do that. It is a long-standing policy of the NDP and something which most critics have said is needed, and I commend the member for Papineau for doing that. It would also require a legislative review, which of course we think is eclipsed by the excellent work on the commissioner's part today.
In conclusion, I do not know whether amending the Parliament of Canada Act with respect to the Board of Internal Economy's disclosure provisions is necessary. The retired clerk says no, but why not? It is okay. The order-making power is good, absolutely. As to changing the purpose clause, the commissioner does not think that is a good idea and neither do I in particular, but the idea of ordering disclosure is a long-overdue improvement to the legislation.
Would that the bill went far enough to give Canada the open government that the government of the day here has promised us and which it has failed to deliver on ever since the so-called and much lamented Accountability Act was first brought forward.
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here to talk about this very important private member's bill. It is one we have looked at before. We are now into our second hour, and the mover of the bill will be up shortly to address some of the questions being raised here.
I want to start by directly answering one of the comments made about the fact that it does not go far enough. It almost seemed that the Conservatives wanted to have a little more proactivity involved in the sense of what we are doing here with the Liberal Party of Canada, when in fact, we were the ones who brought forward far greater measures on proactive disclosure than this House has ever seen. Yet some members, including the one who just spoke, seemed to think that we were in a position of dragging people in, kicking and screaming, on proactive disclosure, which Canadians demanded and now have. We are all doing it now.
The person behind that is the person bringing forward this bill, so the theme continues. We think this is a substantial step in making this House far more accountable and far more transparent than it ever has been.
I want to go back to what happened earlier today, when the report came out from Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner. She brought forward the concept, which we recognize, of “open by default”. Canadians watching this, from coast to coast to coast, might assume that it is happening already, but it is not. We have run into problems on committee.
Many journalists I have talked to talk about the redaction of information that is out there that is really unnecessary and how the power of this particular office needs to be restored. Right now, I would even go so far as to say that it has become an empty shell, by way of title only.
Let me bring forward some of the messages the Information Commissioner brought forward today. She talked about recommendations. She had 85 recommendations, which is substantial. She said that the recommendations would address ways to modernize the act “[t]o deal with current realities and the expectations of Canadians”, some not being fulfilled when it comes to transparency, plus we are now in the digital age, which I will talk about in just a moment; “[t]o simplify the administration and the application of the Act by focussing only on the interests that legitimately require protection”, and I mentioned redaction earlier; “[t]o increase timeliness in the processing of access requests”, which is long overdue; “[t]o permanently resolve recurring issues; [t]o align the Act with the most progressive and strongest laws in Canada and abroad; and [t]o maximize disclosure in line with a culture of openness 'by default'”.
In light of the developments, the commissioner recommended modernizing the Access to Information Act. These are some of the major highlights:
extending coverage to all branches of government;
improving procedures for making access requests;
setting tighter timelines;
maximizing disclosure;
strengthening oversight;
disclosing more information proactively;
adding consequences for non-compliance; and,
ensuring periodic review of the Act.
That brings us to where we are now on Bill C-613, brought forward by the hon. member for Papineau. There are several measures we talked about, messages we want to put out there to Canadians about what this bill will provide. Transparency is another goal in what we call open parliament. Obviously, this is a step in the right direction. It is a private member's bill. Beyond this, more legislation will follow so that we can follow through on an open parliament concept.
With its enormous power and responsibility, it is simply not acceptable in modern society for the Board of Internal Economy to meet in secret. Canadians deserve greater accountability. We have been saying this now for the past little while, and we continue to say this. The Board of Internal Economy provides a very specific function and a vital function in the heart of our democracy. It is certainly a vital operation within this House of Commons. We have seen it all over the news lately, for reasons I will not get into.
As secretive as it may be, in some cases we can understand why, when it comes to personal information, but for all the issues it deals with, there is no really grand or true reason it should be secret.
The transparency act would raise the bar on openness and transparency in government by significantly strengthening Canada's access to information laws, as was pointed out earlier. Again, that is open by default.
Canadians deserve a strong access to information regime that ensures true transparency and accountability.
The Access to Information Act has not changed in any significant way since it was passed and now it is time to act. We are proud to say that the member for Papineau, the leader of our party, has decided to act on this with his private member's bill, Bill C-613.
Let me go back to the Board of Internal Economy and the reform that is being proposed with the bill. The transparency act makes the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy open by default. Today MPs are making decisions about the regulations that govern their own spending with insufficient public scrutiny. Public scrutiny is the concept we have been using here for quite some time. It is bandied about within the media, not only the media here on the Hill but media throughout the country. That is why it is very important to make sure that this secretive committee is far more open than it used to be, to have this in the public realm. Discussions there are secret by law. It is time to change that law. By bringing openness to the board's conversations we could better serve Canadians. They have demanded more accountability and they would get more accountability upon passage of the bill.
Earlier speakers talked about it not going far enough, but we think this is a very substantial step.
We just spoke about access to information. The report came out today so let me expand on that and relate it to Bill C-613.
Achieving more open government makes sense for Canada. Governments around the world that embrace this concept have demonstrated new ways to reduce costs, spark entrepreneurial initiatives and help the public and private sectors to better serve citizens. A country's access to information system is the heart of open government.
We were in committee and spoke to the commissioner at that time. She talked about examples around the world and how it was a low-cost mechanism, very open, very accountable and very efficient in many ways. The problem she cited was that the office here was not given the resources to bring it up to an international standard that was acceptable, not just acceptable in the eyes of other countries and what they are doing administratively, but acceptable to all Canadians across the country who expect open government from us. Several of the measures we have taken earlier show that and this particular bill is that substantial step.
The information commissioner said:
Real improvement in the access system will only come from modernizing the act—a long-overdue step that is crucial to advancing the cause of transparency and accountability in Canada.
Therefore, it is not just from those of us who are supporting the bill, but it is also from the commissioner herself who is mirroring these comments about why it is so necessary to make these changes so that we can be open by default.
We are open to amendments, suggestions and improvements on the bill. We look forward to that in time.
The other thing the information commissioner spoke about, and she spoke very well, is the efficiency of the system and the cost. She told us that she did not want the cost of the system to rise. That is why we use the $5 fee in the bill, to talk about that and how it is refundable after someone does not get the information in a specific period of time.
When we were in committee, the Conservatives talked about having another tier of fees for private individuals. In the case of businesses where they wanted certain information from the government and it was not coming quickly enough, they said that maybe we should charge them more. If I had a small business, I do not think I would have liked to hear that. I do not know if they thought that through fully, but if we think about it, if we are going to start escalating two-tier costs and also in talking about privacy they want more redaction within this, who is it really serving in this particular case? Now we have legislation, an act that is servicing the government by putting on the false show of saying that we are open by default when in fact that is not the case in practice. There are two things here, the costs are down but if something is going to be redacted, in this particular legislation it should be justified to the hilt. It should be justified to the point that we are open by default. Therefore, it is not up to the government to just say that something is politically insensitive, so it will redact that part of the information and therefore Canadians cannot see it.
This may not come as a big surprise to many people in the House, but I do support this piece of legislation. I urge all members in the House to support it because this is a very significant step toward open government, open by default, as certainly was put forward by the information commissioner today.
