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

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices are places where key decisions are made. A lot of the information citizens would want to access pass through those offices.

The fact that they are not subject to access to information is a huge loophole in the current system. It is a problem that has been identified by many outside experts and by non-profit organizations focused on access to information. It is also a problem that was identified by the Liberals themselves. In the election, they promised to extend access to information to the Prime Minister's Office and to ministers' offices. This bill clearly does not do it. Furthermore, we have not heard any kind of explanation from the government as to why it is breaking this promise.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the level of detail the member brings to this House from the committee work he has done.

If we are able to put information online and have less of a load on the departments, would that not help alleviate some of the member's concerns around whistle-blowers?

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, once again, proactive disclosure can be a good thing. However, I would suggest that it is extremely unlikely that the government will proactively disclose the kind of information that is being brought forward by whistle-blowers. It is very unlikely that the documents the government prepares for proactive disclosure will actually encompass the kind of information that people come forward and blow the whistle to release. That is why it is so important to strengthen the access to information system far more than this bill does. If we strengthened it and citizens could actually get the information, there might be less need for public servants to have to go through the whistle-blower process.

I think that improving access to information certainly could help to alleviate some of the pressures on the whistle-blower protection system. I am skeptical that more proactive disclosure will do so, even though I would agree with the member across the way that proactive disclosure can be a positive thing.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today, September 25, is Franco-Ontarian Day. I want to extend my best wishes to all Franco-Ontarians and to honour this important day by beginning my speech in French.

Bill C-58 authorizes heads of government institutions to decline access to information requests if they are vexatious or made in bad faith. Those subjective criteria will be used to decide who gets access to information. This bill gives the Information Commissioner more power, which makes it much harder for those seeking access to information to obtain an investigation. In essence, this bill will make it harder for Canadian citizens, media, and opposition party members to access information. Do we live in an open and democratic country?

I would also like to point out that the Prime Minister promised the Access to Information Act would also apply to cabinet and the Prime Minister's Office. Bill C-58 is just another example of what Canadians already know: the Prime Minister is not a man of his word. He simply does not keep his election promises.

Suffice it to say, here we are. It is Monday, we are in Ottawa, it is hot, I am speaking, and we are discussing another broken Liberal promise. Therefore, despite the summer, not much has changed.

Before I go too far into the substance of this bill, being back from the summer and having not had the chance to do so yet, I want to quickly pay tribute to my friend Arnold Chan. It was an honour to serve in this House with him. One of the things that has not been mentioned in his many tributes is his great service as the chair of the Canada-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group. It was through the group that I was able to get to know him. His commitment to that cause showed his character, his willingness to invest in Canada's relationship with a relatively small country, yet a country that is hard pressed because of the challenges it faces with its neighbours. His commitment to engaging with that cause showed his principled approach to politics. I wanted to make sure that was mentioned as well. I certainly would associate myself with all of the tributes that have been made recognizing his contribution to this place, his commitment to raising the standard of debate, and the other very important things that were said.

To the issue at hand, we are debating a government bill that would make various changes with respect to the access to information regime. I was not here for much of last week because I was in New York. I had the pleasure of going to some UN meetings with the President of the Treasury Board, as part of the Open Government Partnership. It was an interesting week, leading up to where we are today debating this bill, to have and to hear some discussions with our international partners specifically about the question of open government, of the access of citizens to government.

I was particularly struck by a presentation that was made by the President of Estonia. She was talking about the link between open government and trust. She made the point, and it is obviously true if one digs into it, that the mechanisms of open government, the structures and institutions of open government, can really only have meaning and be effective if they are associated with a culture in which people trust and have reason to trust the government. People are not going to share information with a government that they do not trust. They are not going to trust the quality of the information that they receive if there is not an underlying sense of being able to rely on the information, that they can rely on its word and on its commitment to a credible process. In other words, open government is a process, but it is also about a mentality, not just about a set of institutional changes. That was the case that she made, and I found it resonated with me and many of the other people in the room.

I say that because it is particularly paradoxical today. We are debating a bill that purports to be about the opening up of government, where the government is breaking faith, breaking trust, with the people who elected it by going back substantively on a promise. Of course, as colleagues of mine have said, we have seen many cases of the government breaking its election promises. However, it is particularly notable in this case when we are discussing an area that is supposed to be all about trust, about open government. The government is saying it is trying to open it up, and at the same doing it in a way that undermines a clear election commitment that it made.

Unfortunately, the government's unwillingness to take the promises it made seriously has undermined many people's trust in government and faith in the political process. Therefore, for those in the House who are interested in substantively advancing the values of open government, it is not just about institutional changes and structures, it is about following through on one's commitments. It is about respecting the trust that people have given, which is the basis for open government, as well as some of these institutional changes. I want to put that out as a kind of contextual framework for the conversation. Again, I think people would be disappointed anytime that they see the government breaking promises. There have been many instances of that, but when it is a process around open government, it is particularly ironic, and goes that much further in undermining people's trust in government.

Having said that, in terms of an introductory set-up, I will talk about the substance of the legislation.

Bill C-58 deals with access to information, which is the right that citizens have to file requests to the government to get information about what is happening inside of government. This is information that may not be proactively disclosed but that may be available. It is an important tool for opposition parties that are holding the government to account. Accessing information from the government is something that we do on a regular basis. It is also something that civil society organizations, academics, and ordinary citizens do. People have a range of motivations for accessing the information. As I said earlier in questions and comments, and I will come back to it later, it is not for the state, for us as parliamentarians, or for government ministers to judge whether someone's desire for accessing information is reasonable or justified.

The law ought to prescribe people having a right to certain information, to know how government operates and what the government is doing, and then it is up to them to decide how, when, and for what to use that information. I think that is an important principle. Obviously, certain information cannot be made available through access to information requests. However, we should not try to create a situation where the government is evaluating people's motivation and subjectively being able to determine whether it will give that information, based even on who the person is making the request.

Bill C-58 proposes various changes to the framework for access to information. I will mention a few of the particular aspects of it, and then I want to develop them.

There was a promise from the Liberals during the last election campaign. They said that they were going to extend access to information to activities within ministers' offices and within the Prime Minister's Office. This proposed legislation would not do that. The Liberals are breaking their commitment to having access to information include ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. Unfortunately, they are going back on a very clear commitment yet again.

Under the proposed act, we would have a situation in which the government could refuse any access to information request that it regards as being vexatious, made in bad faith, or as a misuse of the right to request information. However, when we think about a vexatious request or a request made in bad faith, it is according to whom? In a free society, an opposition party, a member of the media, or a third-party organization might make an access to information request for no other reason than because they wish to politically embarrass the government. Certainly I would never make an access to information request along those lines, but I have heard of this maybe happening.

It is part of free democratic debate that people can access that information and use it as they see fit. With regard to exposing what is happening in government, even if the motivation of the person is purely to embarrass the government, that embarrassment may well be in the public interest, for the public to know what the government is doing behind closed doors and to hold the government accountable for that.

However, it begs the question of vexatious and in bad faith according to whom, because generally we accept that open information is in the public interest. It is consistent with the comment that the information be out there regardless of why it was requested in the first place or who is accessing it. The paradoxical situation envisioned by this is one in which perhaps I, as a member of the opposition requesting certain information, could be denied that information on the outlandish assumption that I am requesting it in bad faith, but that with someone else who requests exactly the same information, it is going to be presumed that they are not.

It invites the government to make determinations on the basis of motivation. However, more than that, it gives it the subjective power to make that determination. It may well be that it would claim that a request for information is vexatious or in bad faith, when in reality it is simply that the government department or minister in question does not want to see that information go out.

This is a problem. This is a troubling standard or mechanism for making determinations on what information goes out. We have the breaking of a promise and we have the introduction of a subjective standard that asks the government to psychoanalyze the motivations of the person seeking that information. These are two very clear and strong reasons for why not only our party but the NDP as well are opposing this. We both feel that these things are concerning.

Folks may have a range of different opinions about who and what should be subject to access to information, but the reality is that the Liberals, when they were in the third-party position, had the ability to engage in those debates internally, to think about what was and was not appropriate in the context of access to information, and to put their conclusions into their platform. That was what they offered to the Canadian people as their commitment of what they were going to do and how they were going to move forward. It was clearly there, and yet they went in the other direction. They totally reneged on it.

I want to note that this is not the first time we have seen the government break its election promises. There may be a record being set right now by the government in terms of the complete disregard for its election promises. Probably the most well-known and discussed example is the Liberals' commitment with respect to changes to the electoral system. They said that 2015 was going to be the last election under first past the post. Unless someone is planning for us to stop having elections, that promise will not be kept.

The Prime Minister, in the context of pulling back and declaring his intention to break that promise, said something to the effect that they were going to do what they felt was in the best interests of Canadians, not simply try to check a box on a platform. It begs the question then of what in the world the point of the platform was in the first place. The Liberals are supposed to make that public interest evaluation before they make the promise. They are not supposed to make whatever promises they think will get them elected and then make a public interest evaluation after that. That is the whole point of elections. The public evaluates what we put in front of them and makes that determination.

We were saying at the time that if we were going to change the electoral system, we would need to have a referendum. The government was somewhat unclear, but it was trying to get a particular result in terms of an electoral system, a runoff ballot. It became clear in the consultation process that nobody really wanted it. There were people talking about proportional representation, about the status quo, but it was only the Prime Minister and those around him who were talking about this runoff ballot.

When the government realized that it was not going to get that, rather than having a referendum, rather than taking seriously the recommendations of the committee, it decided it was just going to tear up the whole process. This was a broken promise that broke trust in the government. It left a lot of people disappointed and cynical about whether or not the platform commitments were meaningful.

On a lot of people's minds right now is the government's plan to change the system around small businesses and significantly increase the taxes they face. I should remind the government that this is also at odds with an election promise. It is hard to believe now that they promised to reduce taxes on small businesses. They have not talked about that one very much.

All three of the major parties in the House promised to move us to a small business tax rate of 9%. Then the government effectively raised taxes on small business initially by saying it would leave the tax rate at 10.5%. That was one broken promise to small business.

The Liberals also eliminated the hiring credit, which was specifically an incentive to encourage hiring. It is not something that I heard about from the Liberal candidate in Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan during the last election. Did they say they were going to eliminate the hiring credit for small businesses and make it harder for them to hire people? What about that idea? It did not come up in the forums. It did not come up in what they were saying while knocking on doors.

Not only did the government take those steps, but now it is contemplating the largest change to the tax code that we have seen in a long time. It is a change that virtually everybody is against. Not a single person has contacted my office in favour of the proposed changes. Probably now that I have said that, somebody somewhere will, but I have received an overwhelming amount of correspondence in opposition to these changes. This completely goes against the commitments that the Liberals made. During the election they talked about lowering taxes for small business.

The Liberals made other major economic promises.

They made a clear commitment to run $10-billion deficits in each of the first three years they were in government and then balance the budget in the final year. We did not think that was particularly prudent even as explained, but it was what they described as modest deficits. They have completely blown those numbers out of the water, by orders of magnitude. We are looking at not three years of projected deficits but at decades of projected deficits under the current plans of the government. As usually happens, it will take a Conservative government to clean up that mess.

It is hard for me to imagine how government members justify this flagrant dishonesty, whether we are talking about the commitments made with respect to ATIP that are now being ignored, the commitments made with respect to electoral reform now being ignored, balanced budgets now being ignored, or the protection of small business now being ignored. There are many other less publicized but still important examples of the government not respecting its commitments.

The Liberals stand up before voters and tell them what they are going to do, but as soon as they get into power, they come up with all kinds of excuses. On the economy, they usually say the situation has changed, that they did not quite anticipate how bad things were, but we could look at all of the independent analyses that say the budget was balanced before the Liberals came to power. The information that shows there was a surplus when the Liberals took power was there, and it is still clearly there.

With respect to ATIP, there is just no explanation, because there is no plausible claim that circumstances on the ground have changed. We are not talking about something that changes without the government changing it. The Liberals are making a decision to renege on their promise.

In the time I have left, I would like to highlight one more time that the government can refuse any ATIP request. Its only justification has to be that it suspects the good faith of the person making that request. I suspect that after this legislation passes, we will have many opposition ATIPs, many civil society ATIPs, many media ATIPs for which the motivation of those putting them forward will be suspect.

In a free society, government does not deny people information because it does not think their motives are pure enough. That is not how open government is supposed to work. That is not how government builds trust.

On that basis, we are opposing this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, the remarks from the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan give me yet another opportunity to celebrate the fact that our government is keeping its promise made in the election by putting forward amendments to the Access to Information Act—for the first time in 34 years, I would remind the member opposite—and doing essentially what we had promised, which is giving order-making powers to the commissioner, making investments to improve timeliness, and putting the Prime Minister's Office, ministers' offices, and many other offices under the act through the proactive disclosure measures that will address the kinds of information that are most frequently requested in access to information, thereby reducing the gumming-up of the system.

It is also important to contrast what our government is doing with what the previous government did. The member may not have been there. I would like to draw his attention to the Information Commissioner's report of 2014 and her findings and recommendations, in which she investigated interference by political staff in the access to information process. Her first main conclusion is that there was improper involvement of ministerial staff members in the processing of five out of the eight access requests that she was sampling and reviewing in depth.

This is a case in which ministerial staff who had no authorization were rescinding the provision of information that the ATIP staff people had already agreed to disclose.

Second, what was also happening was a failure to comply with statutory duty to assist. For the member's information, just to make sure he has a balanced view of what is going on here, the ministerial staff who were not authorized in any way to be involved with this were holding up access to information packages that had been prepared by the department and were ready to go. They were holding them up from five days to a month for political reasons.

I could go on, but I would like to ask the member a question on this very constructive approach to reviewing and revising this act. Will he be part of a positive approach in terms of fine-tuning and bringing forward the ideas he has to the committee, where he could present them to a government that actually listens in committee and considers amendments?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was an unusual intervention from the parliamentary secretary, to say the least.

She told the House that the government is doing “essentially” what it had promised. I am not sure what “essentially” means in that context, but that appears to be quite a modifier, because clearly the government is not doing what it promised. If it is doing essentially what it promised, perhaps that is supposed to remind us that it is doing the opposite of what it promised.

Let us be very clear: applying proactive disclosure to ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office in certain particular narrow cases is not at all the same or even close to allowing the public to use access to information in ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office in the same way that it would for other parts of government.

In contrast to the clear statements in the Liberal platform, this legislation treats ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office in a completely different way. It does not in any way apply the Access to Information Act to them. It is misleading. What the parliamentary secretary has said is essentially untrue.

I am not going to say that the handling of ATIPs was always perfect under the previous government, although I think the parliamentary secretary exaggerates the point. However, let us be clear about what the legislation is proposing to do. It is proposing to now give the government the power to deny any claim. In other words, it gives them the ability to interfere, to block access to information requests on the basis of specious claims or vexatious claims or bad faith or bad motivations.

The government is changing the nature of the system to make it worse. That is completely different from anything that was even alleged to have happened in the past.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech, and I share many of his concerns. However, I was taken aback when he said that only a Conservative government can set things right.

We are talking about a bill that has not been amended in 35 years, so I wonder why it is that nothing happened under the Liberals or the Conservatives and why it was not until NDP members introduced bills to update the Access to Information Act in 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2014 that things stabilized.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the important point to underline with respect to access to information is that the government made clear commitments with respect to changes that it said were in the public interest, and many people voted for the Liberals on the basis of those changes. Those were not commitments that the Conservative Party ever made. We made a range of other commitments in our previous election platforms, and almost without exception, we kept the commitments we made to Canadians.

My point with respect to those particular changes is that one can debate the pros and cons about allowing access to information requests in political offices, but at the end of the day, this was something that the party opposite very clearly promised to do and that we now know it has no intention of doing.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to be very earnest—at least, I believe he is—and I enjoy listening to his speeches, but I have to say in that light that I am surprised he takes issue with the definition of “vexatious” and the commissioner's authority with respect to that.

I say that for a couple of reasons. First, we know that vexatious requests plug the system up. We know there are requests that are vexatious and that as a result other legitimate requests become plugged up, and it then takes time for those requests to be responded to. As someone who has been on the other side of an FOI request, a freedom of information request, I know what is involved in terms of someone making a request. It is time-consuming and it takes up a lot of energy, which is misused when looking at vexatious requests.

I am asking the member what alternative he would suggest for dealing with situations of vexatious requests that will not be helpful at all. I do not agree that we have to necessarily go to the assumptions of the people making the requests. What alternative can he provide that would stop the system from being gummed up by these sorts of requests, resulting in delays that are not fair to other people who are waiting with legitimate requests?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a few points on that.

It was interesting that even in exhorting us to be aware of the problem of vexatious complaints, she did not provide any kind of definition for “vexatious”. That is the problem, is it not? It is a difficult thing to define, and it will be defined subjectively by the government.

She mentioned that a lot of resources are used. A lot of resources are used in terms of any access to information request, not just ones that are “vexatious”. That is the price of living in a free and open democracy. Parliament consumes a lot of resources as well, and I think most of the time they are well spent.

In terms of alternatives, my friend, the member for Durham, made some excellent points about how the cost structure could be made to better reflect the costs of developing responses and to act as something of a disincentive. In other words, if someone is asking for a great volume of information, then perhaps there is a way of building that into the cost structure that does not deny the person the right to access that information but is reflective of the reality of that cost.

In any event, I think that for the government to be able to choose to deny, period, those requests on the basis of potentially specious claims of vexatiousness is uncalled for in a free and open society.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Brandon—Souris, Taxation; the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Human Rights; and the hon. member for Bow River, Taxation.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Edmonton West.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Calgary Heritage.

I am pleased to speak on Bill C-58, which would amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, also known as another broken Liberal promise hidden behind talking points peppered with key words like “open by default”, “transparency”, and “historic”. That is just the working title.

This bill demonstrates once again that the lofty rhetoric of the 2015 campaign on openness, transparency, and accountability was just that: rhetoric. Rhetoric is defined as language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content. That is pretty much what we have here with this bill.

That said, there are components of the bill I agree with. First, giving the information and privacy commissioners more resources to do their jobs properly and more power to do them effectively are both good. In her recent annual report, the Information Commissioner described the current condition of access to information succinctly as, “there is a shadow of disinterest on behalf of the government” in transparency and accountability. Her conclusion was no more complimentary in stating “that the Act is being used as a shield against transparency and is failing to meet its policy objective to foster accountability and trust in our government.” Hopefully she can use the minor positive changes in this bill to transform the act into something more meaningful, because that is essentially where the good parts stop.

Moving on to the bad, let us first talk about some of the problems with the current system. Timely access to information is a key characteristic of a well-functioning democracy. The word I want to underline in this statement is “timely”. If an access to information request takes months or even years to fulfill, the government has failed in its responsibility to be accessible. This legislation does not prevent requests from taking months or years to be completed, but, amazingly enough, enables the process to take even longer. That is unacceptable.

I am an avid user of the Access to Information Act. In the year and a half since I was elected, we have submitted over 60 ATIPs. I freely admit that we like to take advantage of the opportunity to get information from the government. Take my words seriously when I say that the Liberal government is unbearably slow in responding to ATIP requests.

As I mentioned, since we were elected we have filed over 60 requests, and only half of them have been completed. Some were filed in March of 2016 and remain outstanding over 18 months later. Here are some of the other outstanding requests: as mentioned, March 17, 2016, 18 months; August 19, 2016, 13 months; September 2, 2016, happy birthday to it, as it has been over a year now; two filed on January 31 , 2017, nine months; and April 6, 2017, five months. We have over a dozen ATIPs that we filed in the last four months that are still outstanding.

The government promised to be better, to set a gold standard and exceed it by a mile. Exceed it? It still has not left the starting blocks.

What has been the government's response to this? It wants to give heads of government institutions the ability to decline requests on the basis that they are vexatious or made in bad faith. Who is going to define vexatious? Who is going to ensure that the government heads are not declining requests that are vexatious to the government or departments because they would embarrass them and are in fact requests for information that the public needs to know, such as our ATIPs on the Phoenix issue that showed very clearly that the government was told two months before it pulled the trigger on Phoenix to clear the backlog, which it ignored? Under these rules about vexatious requests, the department would have been able to cover that off.

Another ATIP we had on Phoenix had the CFOs from literally every single government operation—Transport, Public Services, Agriculture, Finance, and Revenue—all stating very clearly not to go ahead with it, that the training and testing were not done. The government went ahead. Again, without ATIPs we would not have found this. Giving the department heads or the government the opportunity to block that would cover this all up.

At a legislative briefing back in June, my staff asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board if ministers would be able to decline requests using the same clause. The parliamentary secretary refused to confirm that ministers would not have that power. This is ridiculous. Theoretically, every request filed by someone not in the government is vexatious or made in bad faith in a way. The government has so far worked incredibly hard to hide anything it can, everything from errant ministerial limo expenses to deep-pocketed donors to the Prime Minister and the proper analysis completed by the department on which the policy was based, and the true cost of the Prime Minister's vacation to a billionaire's island.

I have no doubt that it will use these new, poorly defined and inadequately described powers to declare as much as it can to be in bad faith. Never fear, the Liberals say, if a person disagrees with the Liberal denial, he or she can appeal to the commissioner or go to the courts. The latter is truly laughable. As we have heard repeatedly, the court system is so bogged down with cases and understaffed by qualified judges, almost exclusively because the government is unable or unwilling to appoint judges for some reason, that accused murderers are being set free. I spoke to a lawyer the other day who was complaining that it was taking him four years to get a single court appearance for a civil case and that the government was saying that if he has an issue with that he can go to the courts to get timely access. I do not think so.

My point is that the system of denial, appeal, denial, appeal could take a process that already takes upward of 18 months or more and counting to two years, three years, or four years. The beauty of this legislation for the government is that there is no upper limit on timeliness. However, it is not the same for the public or the opposition. The government claims that it is ensuring it is open by default. That is patently false. Open by default would include setting an upper limit, after which the government releases the requested information. This legislation ensures that the Liberals can continue moving the upper limit as long as is politically convenient.

The next ridiculous provision is proactive disclosure. This one is great to discuss, as the minister touted proactive disclosure in his press conference introduction and was lambasted by the media for his excessive optimism. The legislation tends to create a new part providing for the proactive publication of information of materials related to the Senate, the House, parliamentary entities, ministers' offices, etc.

I will quote John Ivison for the National Post because he summarized these provisions better than I can. He stated:

The information that will emerge from briefing notes or Question Period binders is sure to be as sanitized, and therefore useless, as the average sterile government press release.

Having read numerous iterations of the question period binders for the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, I cannot imagine what an even more sanitized book would look like. I wish I shared the optimism of the President of the Treasury Board in his belief that the legislation will produce any outcome other than what was predicted by John Ivison. The Liberals believe that proactive disclosure will help ensure that governments remain more accountable, and the legislation includes publishing ministerial mandate letters to confirm the government's priorities. Theoretically, this will make it more difficult for the Liberals, or any government, to cavalierly disregard its promises.

How did that work out, practically speaking? Does publishing mandate letters force the government to keep its promises? Remember the debt and deficit promise? That was in the finance minister's mandate letter, which was blown off. The electoral reform promise was in the democratic institutions minister's mandate letter, which was blown off. What about the promise to fix Canada Post, which was in the public services and procurement minister's mandate letter, and to complete an open competition for the fighter jets within the mandate period before the mandate finished in 2019? Maybe it should have said to commit to a sole source purchase of an almost out of production plane with absolutely no parts made in Canada, and at the same time start a trade spat with Boeing, and to make sure to use taxpayer money for bonuses for the billionaire owners of Bombardier. I think that is a promise the minister can keep from the mandate letter. What about the promise to modify the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act? That was in the Treasury Board Minister's mandate letter and is also a failure.

The Liberals have clearly demonstrated that they do not care about mandate letters. They will disregard whatever promises happen to be inconvenient at the time. So much for proactive disclosure.

John lvison summed up his thoughts decisively when he stated:

It’s a farce, and...[the minister] has been around long enough to know the changes he’s just unveiled will not make the slightest difference to helping citizens understand the government for which they pay so richly.

That is it. Apart from a few other minor amendments, that is all the legislation intends to do. Have the Liberals lived up to their promise to bring the legislation into the 21st century? I will let the House know when I get my ATIPs back, perhaps sometime in the 22nd century.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I note with interest that the member opposite complained about the length of time it takes to receive the information requests that have been put in. With all due respect, I would like to remind the member that it was his party that was in power over the last 10 years and did nothing about it. However, parts of this legislation go to the very concern the member has about the time it takes to access the information. We know that proactive disclosure will apply to the Prime Minister's Office, the ministers' offices, and the officers of Parliament. As well, the commissioner will have the ability to render certain requests vexatious or having been made in bad faith. These measures will help with the timing and processing of the requests made, which is the member's concern. Therefore, if he does not agree with these measures, what solution can he offer to speed up these files? I hope his response will differ from the suggestion by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan that the rich can pay while the poor are just out of luck.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my suggestion is that perhaps once in a while the government could keep its promises on this issue. The whole government, including the member, appears to have a bad case of “whataboutism”. Every time an issue is brought up about its failed and poorly thought out legislation, it responds with, “But what about you guys 30 years ago? What about when Mulroney was in power; why didn't you fix it then?” I hate to mention to the member that it is incumbent upon the Liberal government to be responsible and do things properly to fix it. It cannot just throw out horrible legislation and say, “Yeah, it's lousy, we admit it, but what about the fact you guys didn't fix it 10 years ago?” It is shameful that it is suffering from “whataboutism”. Perhaps it should look at addressing the issue and this bad legislation.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comfort my colleague by letting him know that I have put in a few ATIPs and did get answers back. However, they were all talking points, blah, blah, blahs and not worth receiving.

The question I have for him has to do with what people can do. In his speech he talked about the commissioner and the courts. The concern was that the courts are letting murders and sex offenders go because it appears that the Minister of Justice cannot appoint enough judges. I have that concern too, because we have discovered from studying the marijuana legislation that all charges for cannabis possession will be dropped after a year. Based on the time of year, that is like saying that nobody will be charged for anything.

However, I am wondering if we still have a commissioner. I think we were missing a few commissioners. Could the member comment on that?