Bill C-58 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Access to Information Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the head of a government institution, with the approval of the Information Commissioner, to decline to act on a request for access to a record for various reasons;
(b) authorize the Information Commissioner to refuse to investigate or cease to investigate a complaint that is, in the Commissioner’s opinion, trivial, frivolous or vexatious or made in bad faith;
(c) clarify the powers of the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner to examine documents containing information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege or the professional secrecy of advocates and notaries or to litigation privilege in the course of their investigations and clarify that the disclosure by the head of a government institution to either of those Commissioners of such documents does not constitute a waiver of those privileges or that professional secrecy;
(d) authorize the Information Commissioner to make orders for the release of records or with respect to other matters relating to requesting or obtaining records and to publish any reports that he or she makes, including those that contain any orders he or she makes, and give parties the right to apply to the Federal Court for a review of the matter;
(e) create a new Part providing for the proactive publication of information or materials related to the Senate, the House of Commons, parliamentary entities, ministers’ offices, government institutions and institutions that support superior courts;
(f) require the designated Minister to undertake a review of the Act within one year after the day on which this enactment receives royal assent and every five years afterward;
(g) authorize government institutions to provide to other government institutions services related to requests for access to records; and
(h) expand the Governor in Council’s power to amend Schedule I to the Act and to retroactively validate amendments to that schedule.
It amends the Privacy Act to, among other things,
(a) create a new exception to the definition of “personal information” with respect to certain information regarding an individual who is a ministerial adviser or a member of a ministerial staff;
(b) authorize government institutions to provide to other government institutions services related to requests for personal information; and
(c) expand the Governor in Council’s power to amend the schedule to the Act and to retroactively validate amendments to that schedule.
It also makes consequential amendments to the Canada Evidence Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

Access to Information Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We want to allow other questions. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect, the current government is obviously not all that touched by the children of St. Anne's when it is continuing to fight them in court. Therefore, all the talk that I hear from the Liberals about this new relationship, yes it is nice, let us all cry on each other's shoulders, means nothing unless the government is going to put this in action.

The member said that the Information Commissioner's is just one point of view. She is the defender of the Access to Information Act. When the member talks about the committee, we are talking about a Liberal majority committee that ignored working with the other members of that committee and that ignored all the key recommendations of the Access to Information Commissioner. When I hear that it is just one point of view, yes it is just not the point of view of government. The role of the access to information system is to hold government to account. Canada was once one of the world leaders in access to information. We are 46th, 47th, or are we down to 50th now? We are below narco drug states. We are below Mexico, below Serbia, and below Sri Lanka in terms of access to information. We have an Access to Information Commissioner who is raising the alarm bells that this would even further impede our broken access to information system. I am just frankly appalled at the cynicism of the current government.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the story that my colleague for Timmins—James Bay has told is a terrible story. It illustrates exactly why, to get to the bottom of some of the most terrible crimes, whether they are human, ethical, or environmental, we need to know what is happening at the place of decision-makers and not leave this in the hands of the bureaucrats.

Given the Prime Minister's very solemn promise that the Access to Information Act would be extended to cover the offices of the Prime Minister and ministers so that we can see as Canadians and as members of Parliament how decisions were made, what is the impact for people such as those the member represents, the indigenous people, who are fighting the legacy of residential schools and St. Anne's repeated court cases? When we see this promise so completely broken, what does that do to their faith in government?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are many tools a government has to limit access to information. There are cabinet confidences and a whole series of tools that the government already has. However, the question my hon. colleague has raised about the promise that was made by the Prime Minister to open up the key ministerial offices to access to information is really fundamental, because Canada has been called a black hole of accountability when it comes to the fact that any minister can put something under the ministerial office and lo and behold, it cannot be accessed. This is where the decisions are made.

The Prime Minister made a specific promise about opening that up, and yet he did not follow through, and these are key issues, particularly with the issue of St. Anne's Residential School. What we need to know as politicians and the public are the decisions that went into the political decisions, not into the legal issues, and not into the individual cases. Those are already covered and protected under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. They are protected by privacy. We do not need to know the individual names of those who suffered. What we need to know is, for example, who was the assistant deputy minister. What was the role of the assistant deputy minister in gathering evidence? What was the role of the advisers to the minister in making a decision that had a profound impact and that has denied justice?

We have to ask ourselves, are there two levels of justice in this country, with the lesser one for indigenous people? I would like to think there are not.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is worth remembering that the Information Commissioner in an unprecedented response gave a full condemnation, top to bottom, of the bill. She basically said that Bill C-58 as it stood, notwithstanding the couple of tweaks and little turns that have been made, is a regressive piece of proposed legislation.

I would ask my colleague what he thought, and whether he agrees with me that the arrogance of the Liberal government is best reflected by the fact that some government departments are already using provisions of Bill C-58 to deny information properly requested which would have been provided under the existing status quo.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the fact is, our Information Commissioner is studious about being non-partisan, and so when we see the Information Commissioner totally condemn a government bill, I do believe that is unprecedented for the kind of work the commissioner does. To see that we have various departments already throwing requests out is a very disturbing undermining of the fundamental principle. As I said, Canada is about 50th in the world in terms of credibility of access to information. When Mexico, Serbia, and Colombia are further ahead of us in accountability to citizens, we have a problem.

I would have thought the Prime Minister would have lived up to that promise. It is the cynicism of the Liberals' action and presentation here that really disturb me.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, particularly at supper time.

I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-58. It is quite a coincidence that we are talking about consistency, transparency, and access to information—in short, giving clear answers to clear questions—when we saw exactly the opposite of that today in question period. I will come back to that a bit later.

This bill objectively seeks to make government more transparent and to give Canadians better access to government information. That is the objective, but it is still far from reality. I would not say that I am in a conflict of interest because that is a sensitive topic these days. However, as a former journalist and a current MP, I find myself walking a very fine line between the legitimate access to information requests that Canadians should be able to make to the federal government and the executive's ability to govern in order to carry out the usual business of a government, a country, while maintaining some level of confidentiality when it comes to debates and relevant information.

Let us be clear about one thing: if everything is made public and if there is access to everything that is said, and if everyone's views are known, at some point there will no longer be any real internal debate by cabinet, which is necessary to govern a solid state like Canada. Therefore, there is a very fine line that needs to be drawn and this government clearly did that when it was in opposition. When the Liberals made an election promise, they drew that line; today, the line is there, whereas before it was here. This is a regressive bill.

I listened closely to the President of the Treasury Board, who sponsored this bill. I hold the member in high regard and have great respect for him. He has been here for almost 21 years and, at another time, early on in his political career, he sat on the right side, with the Conservatives. He has the right to change his mind, as some have, but I just wanted to point that out, tongue in cheek. I will be a good sport. He made an objective statement that I will not challenge: this is the first time in 34 years that a government is overhauling access to information. Only that much is true. The overhaul is not going to provide more access to information. On the contrary, it will give more power to the executive, the ministers, the Prime Minister and his cabinet to restrict Canadians' access to information.

I will provide some examples. First, the Information Commissioner was rather scathing in her assessment of the first draft of this regressive bill and worse yet, she said that in her view, the sponsorship scandal, the legacy of the Chrétien and Martin governments—of which the current President of the Treasury Board was a member—would not have been uncovered without the excellent journalistic work of the Daniel Leblancs of this world. It is quite a positive development for transparency, right? It is truly a step forward for openness. It is truly a fundamental element of freedom of the press. No, it is not.

We recognize that a dozen or so amendments were adopted, but we think that those amendments do not go far enough when it comes to the Liberal ambition and even less so when it comes to the practice of journalism. I acknowledge that what I am about to say may be subjective, but part of our work as MPs is to be subjective. It may be subjective, but I have 20 years' experience as a journalist under my belt. We believe that the proposed amendments do not go far enough. As a result of these amendments, in a case like the sponsorship scandal of the Chrétien and Martin Liberal governments, of which the current President of the Treasury Board was a member, it would still be difficult to get access to that information. It would not be impossible, but journalists' work would become even more difficult, and that is why we think this is a regressive bill.

In addition, it will be the government that chooses what can and cannot be disclosed from now on. It will be judge and jury. Of course it is in the government's interest to withhold certain information; that is only natural. I am not saying that is what it should do, but it could be a natural reaction for some government members. That is what I would call a step backwards.

The same is true when it comes to the proactive disclosure of certain documents. With this supposedly proactive approach, there is a risk that bureaucrats, policy advisers, and ministers will know which documents are going to be made public in a month or in six months. We can therefore expect a version A, which will be made public, and a version B that has the real information, which can be found in emails, for example, and might be a little more politically sensitive. The government might be a little less inclined to make that information public.

Of course, nothing is perfect in life, but we believe that the proactive disclosure of certain information falls short of what was said or aspired to in the Liberal Party's electoral platform, which is what people voted on two years ago.

Earlier, my NDP colleague mentioned certain amendments that the government flatly refused to consider. The amendments were substantive and in keeping with Liberal promises, but unfortunately, they were rejected. The same amendments had been suggested by the Information Commissioner, journalists, members of the media, and first nations.

The government says it cares so much about first nations and keeps talking about how they are its priority. However, as we have shown during a number of debates, including the one on the Prime Minister's unfortunate statement about religious belief, the government talks about first nations only when doing so suits its purposes. The same goes for this bill.

Even though the government made a dozen or so amendments, we feel that this bill does not go far enough in terms of ensuring the clarity, openness, and transparency everyone expects of the government. It is also a watered-down version of the Liberal promise. In short, this is yet another in what is becoming a very long line of broken Liberal promises.

This government got itself elected on a promise of a small $10-billion deficit for three years and a subsequent return to a balanced budget. Now we are talking $20-billion deficits, and nobody has any idea when the budget will be balanced. The government said it would aggressively raise taxes on seniors. As a result—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is rising on a point of order.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I welcome that happening for the first time while I was speaking. I was a little afraid, to say the least, but I am getting used to the rules of the House of Commons.

Earlier, I was speaking about this government's long line of broken promises, which keeps growing. I was going over the commitments it made and then ignored, especially the ones concerning deficits and the money it was supposed to give to the middle class. The Fraser Institute has reported that 80% of Canadian families are paying $840 more, mainly because certain tax credits our government introduced, such as the green tax credit for people who take public transit, like the bus, were eliminated. This represented two months of free public transit. The Liberal government, which claims to be a green government that is in touch with people, did the exact opposite by eliminating this tax credit.

It is the same thing when the government says that the wealthiest 1% of Canadians will pay more taxes under the Liberal government. This Robin Hood policy is completely false. It is not us Conservatives who are saying so, nor the Montreal Economic Institute or any other right-wing think tank. It is the Department of Finance itself that determined in a report issued just two months ago that the wealthiest Canadians are paying $1.2 billion less in taxes because of this government's tax policies. The government is saying one thing and doing another.

Fortunately, that information is public. It is found in a document that the government made public. We did not have to go through the Access to Information Act, which as we know will be weakened by the updated version of Bill C-58.

It is a rather big coincidence, to say the least, that we are debating access to information, openness, and transparency since, today, as we tried to get answers to our questions in the House of Commons, we saw an extremely ugly demonstration of what a government should not do in question period.

Let me be clear. We understand that in question period, we are talking about a question, period. It is to provide information. When I sat on the National Assembly, it was officially called a question and answer period. However, here, unfortunately we are just talking about a question period, we are not talking about answering a question. That would be very useful, because, today, not three or four times, but on 21 occasions in a row, we asked a clear and simple question of the Minister of Finance, and every time, on 21 occasions in a row, he dodged the issue. He refused to answer a clear question with a clear answer. That is sad. Therefore, it will be very interesting to see our colleagues on the other side say why it is important to have openness and transparency, and to give good information to the people of Canada.

In a government, the minister of finance is number two, not the last minister. In some cases, we could even say the minister of finance is number one; however, that is another debate. I do not want to put aside any other ministers, such as the global affairs minister, the transport minister, the Treasury Board President, and all of those important portfolios such as the defence minister and the first nations minister. All of them are very important. However, in life, there are those who are at the top, and then there are other people. When we talk about cabinet ministers, for sure the finance minister is at the top. I am quite sure that no one who is sitting here—and I see some hon. members from coast to coast who have had strong responsibilities in former governments—will be offended when I say that for sure Jim Flaherty was the number one cabinet minister under the Stephen Harper government. The same thing also goes for Joe Oliver. Everybody will recognize that, because the finance minister is the one who designs the financial and fiscal policies that apply to the financial and fiscal reality of Canada. Therefore, when we have what we could say is a conflict of interest, it is our responsibility to ask questions of the Minister of Finance. That is what we did today. We asked a simple question 21 times in a row, but, unfortunately, 21 times in a row, the Minister of Finance refused to give a clear answer.

That is why I think it is pretty ironic that we are debating Bill C-58, the goal of which is to increase government transparency and openness around information gathering. However, in our view, the bill is regressive and will make investigative reporting even harder. It also places the government in a conflict of interest by making it both the judge and the judged when journalists and citizens raise questions.

We think this bill is regressive. It is also ironic that we should be debating it on the very day that the Minister of Finance, the number one minister, refused to give a clear answer to a perfectly simple question not once, not twice, not three times, but 21 times in a row. He never gave a clear answer to the question in either English or French.

In conclusion, we are going to vote against this bill. We recommend that the Liberal members also vote against this bill, because it is never too late to do right. It would be a good thing if the Liberals voted against it. We could review the bill, which we believe to be a step backwards, not forwards, for press freedom and especially for access to information.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Madam Speaker, the Information Commissioner and the former Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics recommended that, subject to oversight by the commissioner, an enhanced act should give government institutions the authority to refuse to process frivolous or vexatious requests, which clog up the system.

The committee made amendments to give the commissioner the power to make the final decision about whether a request could be refused by a department.

Does the member opposite believe this was a step in the right direction for our access to information system?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Quadra for her very relevant question, but above all, for the quality of her French. I very much appreciate it.

Anyone who speaks in the official language that is not his or her mother tongue deserves our respect and our encouragement, especially the Minister of Finance. I have said this many times. Once again, it would be nice if he gave us some answers, but that is another story.

The member for Vancouver Quadra has a good point. I would like to remind her, however, of something I said earlier in my speech. We believe this does not go far enough.

We see this as regressive, and I am not trying to lecture anyone here. I was a journalist for 20 years, and I did my job to the best of my ability. I was not the best or the worst. I was pretty good, but I cannot say I was the Daniel Leblanc of my field. As everyone knows, he was the one who uncovered the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

Based on that information, we believe that this bill does not go far enough, and although we recognize that an important amendment has been made to the original bill, we still believe that the amendment does not go far enough.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member, but I do not speak French.

First of all, I am delighted that the member brought up transit, because I would love to see the comparison of the billions upon billions we are putting into transit with this party, and I will maybe ask the environment minister to do that.

The member said we should go a bit further in some clauses. Could he name one clause and explain the wording he would like us to go farther on, especially with his experience as a journalist?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent has the floor, but I will ask him to be brief.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I appreciate the fact that he said a few words in French.

With regard to public transit, I think that the government needs to do more to help those who use this mode of transportation. That does not preclude other investments in transport, but all of this must be done with an eye to balancing the budget.

To the member's other relevant question, as a former journalist I would say that these new measures that have been introduced would ultimately allow the government to accept or reject access to information requests regarding its own departments; it is like asking a judge to preside over their own case.