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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Access to Information Act

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

moved 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 concurred in at report stage.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #402

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

moved 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.

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak on Bill C-58, which would amend Canada's Access to Information Act.

As we developed these reforms, we were guided by the principle that government information belongs to the people it serves.

We remain committed to that principle, which was introduced for the first time in the Access to Information Act in 1983.

Now 34 years later, our proposed reforms would advance the original intent of the act in a way that reflects Canada's technologies, policies, and legislation. This is not a one-off exercise. Rather, we have kicked off a progressive ongoing renewal of the ATI system, one that will protect Canadians' rights of access to government information well into the future. Our efforts began over a year ago.

In May 2016, I issued a directive suggesting openness by default in government.

Open by default means having a culture across government in which data and information are increasingly released as a matter of course, unless there are specific reasons not to do so. Now, with the amendments proposed in Bill C-58, we are taking the next step. These amendments would create a new part of the act relating to proactive disclosure, one that effectively puts into practice the idea of open by default. Proactive disclosure would apply to more than 240 departments, agencies, and crown corporations, including the Prime Minister's Office, ministers' offices, senators and members of Parliament, institutions that support Parliament, administrative institutions that support the courts, and over 1,100 judges of the superior courts.

We also added to the legislation the proactive publication of information that we know is of interest to Canadians and that provides greater transparency and accountability with respect to the use of public money.

This will include travel and hospitality expenses for ministers and their staffs and senior officials across government, contracts over $10,000, and all contracts for MPs and senators, grants and contributions over $25,000, mandate letters and revised mandate letters of ministers, briefing packages for new ministers and deputy ministers, lists of briefing notes for the minister and deputy minister, and briefing binders prepared for question period and parliamentary committee appearances.

Of course, this does not absolve us of our responsibility to strengthen the request-based system. We know that the access to information system has been the subject widespread and warranted criticism. In fact, demands on the system have grown massively in recent years. That is why we are developing a guide to provide requesters with clear explanations of exemptions and exclusions, investing in tools to make processing information requests more efficient, allowing federal institutions with the same minister to share request processing services for greater efficiency, and increasing government training to get common and consistent interpretation of the application of ATI rules.

In addition, the proposed bill gives the Information Commissioner new powers, including the power to order the release of government records. This is an important advancement that was first recommended by a parliamentary committee studying the Access to Information Act back in 1987. Our government is acting on it and Bill C-58 would change the commissioner's role from an ombudsperson to an authority with the power to order the release of government records.

We are taking steps to help government institutions eliminate requests made in bad faith, which are detrimental to the system.

By tying up government resources, such vexatious, bad faith requests can interfere with an institution's ability to do its work and respond to other requests. Let me be clear. We have heard the concerns expressed about how we must safeguard against the abuse of this proposed measure. A large or broad request, or one that causes government discomfort, does not, of itself, represent bad faith on the part of the requester.

I would like to address the amendments made at committee. Our government believes in working with parliamentarians through the committee system for the good of all Canadians. I was happy to see that the committee passed over a dozen amendments, which serve to further strengthen and clarify our government's intent to strengthen and reform our access to information regime.

For example, one amendment removes the ability of departments to decline to act on a request simply because the request does not specify the subject matter, type of record, or time period. It gives the Office of the Information Commissioner the power to approve or reject upfront a department's request to decline to act on a request. It clarifies that a department can only decline to act based on the record already being available if it is the identical record.

These amendments address concerns raised by both the Information Commissioner and other stakeholders, including representatives of indigenous claims organizations. The amendments further underline the fact that we want to ensure that the system cannot be abused and cannot be used to decline to act on legitimate requests.

The committee also passed an amendment giving the Information Commissioner the power to publish the results of her investigations and to publish their orders. This is an important strengthening of the commissioner's powers.

The committee passed an amendment that imposes a 30-day deadline for the proactive disclosure of mandate letters.

This is just the first phase of our access to information modernization. In fact, Bill C-58 includes a mandatory review of the act every five years. The first review will begin no later than one year after this bill receives royal assent. What is more, it will require that departments regularly review the information being requested under the act. This will help us understand and increase information that could be proactively disclosed.

After 34 years, Canada's Access to Information Act needs updating. This is going to be an ongoing work in progress as we have an evergreening, modernization and strengthening of the Access to Information Act. We look forward to continuing our work to help make government more open, transparent, and accountable.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister would like to start with openness, accountability, and transparency, maybe he should start with the minister who sits beside him, the finance minister. We saw a display today in the House of Commons where no questions were answered by that minister. How does that give Canadians any confidence in this minister's ability to push through legislation that speaks about openness, accountability, and transparency?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first, the Conservative government we replaced was the first government in the history of the British Commonwealth to be found in contemp of Parliament for not providing information to Parliament on the costs of its legislation. In fact, in 2006, the Conservatives' platform stated they were going to modernize the Access to Information Act, and 10 years later they had not even touched it. We are actually getting the job done. We are doing it, and we would welcome the member's support.

With respect to our finance minister, the absurd smears by opposition members today implying that our finance minister somehow entered politics to make money are totally asinine. Our finance minister entered politics to make a difference. He is making a difference, because two years in he cut the taxes of the middle class and brought in a Canada child benefit that has helped lift over 300,000 Canadian kids out of poverty. We have—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I find it appalling that the minister is completely avoiding the issue. We have a bill and he is throwing out all manner of political stuff and attacking the Conservatives. He should stick to and explain his own attack on the access to information system. I would like the Speaker to make sure that the minister is held accountable to at least explain why he is attacking the access to information system.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I see the hon. President of the Treasury Board rising. I thank the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay for his intervention. I think we are into a dispute about the facts in this case. I recognize that we have just begun the debate on this question and there will be more opportunities for questions and comments.

Does the hon. President of the Treasury Board wish to address the point of order?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, because as is often the case, the member misses the point, and he missed the question. The question was about the finance minister. I was speaking to that question—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. We are going to go back to the President of the Treasury Board to let him finish his response to the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil, and then we will carry on with questions and comments.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, again, I was answering the question posed by my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, which referred to the finance minister. I was speaking of the finance minister, who entered politics to make a difference. He is indeed making a difference, with the best economic growth we have had in over a decade, at 3.7%, something that the previous government did not accomplish. I am proud of the role that the finance minister is playing in terms of the kinds of policy that creates good middle-class growth for all Canadians.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the President of the Treasury Board, but I cannot, because I do not know what bill he is talking about. Bill C-58 would do the opposite of what he just said it would do.

Here is what the Liberals promised would be in this legislation. They promised that access to information would apply to his office and to the Prime Minister's Office. It does not. They promised that the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. It does not. The government promised that the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not.

That is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of the Information Commissioner who appeared before us at committee and moved recommendations to fix Bill C-58. It is somewhat offensive to hear the Treasury Board President talking about respecting the work of committee, because the Liberals struck down amendment after amendment. These were amendments that were based on the testimony we heard at committee, from not only the Information Commissioner, but representatives from first nations communities and the media.

The Liberals promised a number of things, one of which was to rely on evidence. On all of these measures that I just outlined, Bill C-58 is “regressive”, and that is also according to the Information Commissioner.

Who does the member expect us to trust, a government that will not answer simple and direct questions day after day, or the Information Commissioner who is the watchdog and works on behalf of Parliament and all Canadians to make sure we get the information we need to hold government to account?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, we are the first government in 34 years to act to modernize the Access to Information Act. In fact, we have given the Information Commissioner, for the first time ever, real order-making power. She can tell a department or agency to respond to a requester, and the department or agency, after that order is issued, has to respond within 30 days. Failure to do so will be in violation of the law. The department or agency can challenge her, but that would be in a court of law, and that will be decided by a judge. That is real order-making power, and that is progress.

In terms of the application to ministers' offices and the PMO, we are doing that through proactive disclosure. I know why the NDP do not like proactive disclosure. Those members did not like it in 2013, when our Prime Minister, in opposition as leader of the Liberal Party, led the way to proactively disclosing expenses of MPs. We were the first to do that. The Conservatives were quite supportive of that. The NDP did not support proactive disclosure of those expenses, and that party put up all kinds of reasons as to why that should not be done.

We are glad that we led in opposition on proactive disclosure. We are glad that, in government, we are leading in terms of proactive disclosure as an essential part of modernizing Canada's Access to Information Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the work that the minister has been doing with respect to modernizing the access to information regime for the first time in many years, and for his promise to continue doing that work.

I would like to touch on the note that the minister made that there were over a dozen amendments made to this legislation. He mentioned that those amendments reflect the things the Information Commissioner was asking for, some of which were our intent in the first place, but were not perfectly expressed in the original bill. Other amendments were to move further based on the commissioner's request.

Could the minister tell us how this compares with the previous Conservative government with respect to listening to and consulting with people, and then being willing to have amendments made by committee?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra, who has been doing a great job as parliamentary secretary on this and other files.

These amendments address concerns raised by the Information Commissioner and other stakeholders, including representatives of indigenous claims organizations. We have taken these concerns seriously and are open to moving forward with them. We want to make sure that the system cannot be abused and that a request cannot be declined when it is a legitimate request.

The call for a vexatious clause in this has come from the ethics committee in the past. In fact, the Information Commissioner has called for it in the past. It is important that it be properly and narrowly defined. There are eight provinces and the three territories that have a similar clause.

I also agree with the amendment that would provide the power of the Information Commissioner, up front in the process, to either agree with or reject the use of a vexatious clause in the denial of a request. I support that, and I believe it should be up front. That is why the parliamentary process informs and strengthens legislation. It is why I demonstrated very early that I was open to amendments that would help to strengthen the legislation.

Beyond that, within a year of the passage of Bill C-58, we would have a mandatory full review to assess these changes and inform future changes. This is a work in progress—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the minister speak, and as I sit in the House on a daily basis, as we all do, is it any wonder that we find it hard to believe that anything the government says it is going to do will actually come to fruition? We have seen broken promise after broken promise. If members do not believe me, just look at what some of those who are looking closely at Bill C-58 are saying. By ruling out the possibility to obtain information from ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office, the government is breaking its campaign promise to establish a government open by default. Moreover, the possibility to refuse certain access to information requests on an undefined basis jeopardizes the transparency and the openness of this government. That was from Katie Gibbs, the executive director of Evidence for Democracy group. However, there are more, and I will refer to more as I get through my speech today on Bill C-58.

I would be remiss if I did not go back a couple of hours, back to the future, and the egregious display of contempt for parliamentary democracy. It has been a practice in this place for many years that when opposition members ask questions directly and pointedly to the finance minister, as we did today, or to other ministers of the crown, that those answers are expected. They are expected on behalf of all Canadians. This is why we are elected to come to this place; it is to ask the type of hard questions that were asked today.

In the preamble to the movement of a motion to adjourn debate on Bill C-63, I will remind the House that we are talking about openness and transparency, which is something the government runs around saying. The Prime Minister stands up in front of microphones, posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat that the government is more open and transparent than any other government in the history of Canada. I would suggest that nothing could be further from the truth.

I would again remind the House of what I said before I moved the motion to adjourn debate. I said to the Speaker that before I resumed my comments, I wanted to go back to question period and what I thought, quite frankly, was an egregious display of contempt for our parliamentary democracy. This minister was asked multiple times whether he had sold his shares in Morneau Shepell in advance of his tax reform announcement, and he failed to answer the question on multiple occasions.

Therefore, in the absence of the minister answering those questions on a bill that, quite frankly, he has influence over, I would call into question the ability of Canadians to have confidence in him conducting further business on the bill. It is confidence, and not just on this bill, but any bill. The Minister of Finance was asked a minimum of 14 times today in question period whether in fact he had sold his shares in Morneau Shepell in advance of his tax reform policies being announced, and each time he skirted the question. He would not answer. He went on about the middle class and those working hard to join it. Well, right now, it is a matter of the middle class and those working hard to stay in it because of the policies of the finance minister.

We are expected to sit in the House and accept not just what the President of Treasury Board talks about in terms of openness and accountability, but there are multiple people, stakeholders, who have a vested interest in what the President of Treasury Board is promoting and proposing in terms of this access to information legislation, and they are being critical of it. They are being as critical as we are being on the finance minister, because he needs to answer the questions.

The government needs to force the finance minister to answer the questions as to whether in fact he had any vested interest or knowledge of the sale of those shares. It speaks to credibility, to transparency, to accountability, which the government is good at talking about, but when it comes to implementing or living by that, it does not.

What was funny about Bill C-63 and the motion we put forward was that every single person, save one, I believe the member from the Green Party, voted in support of adjourning the debate on that bill. They did that because they do not want to talk about it.

All we are asking is that the minister answer the questions that have been asked of him by those who represent Canadians in this House, every single one of us who are not members of the Liberal Party.

We are actually hearing about Liberal members who are questioning their confidence in the ability of the finance minister to conduct the business of the country. Why? It is because he has failed to answer the questions. He has answered, but in generalities. He goes back to the fetal position of saying that they are working hard for the middle class and those working hard to join it. However, he refuses to answer the questions.

If we are talking about openness and transparency, and this government is proposing Bill C-58, why is the finance minister not being open and transparent with Canadians? We can speculate that perhaps he knows that Canadians will not be happy with the answers. They will not be happy with the villa in France and why he hid that from the Ethics Commissioner, that he had complete control over Morneau Shepell shares and shares in various corporations, or that perhaps he was the one who sold that $10 million worth of shares just ahead of making that announcement. Openness and transparency: what an absolute joke.

I also want to talk about some other individuals who have concerns about what the government is proposing in Bill C-58. The bill proposes a good amendment, and I will give some credit here, by requiring more proactive publication of some information by giving the Information Commissioner the power to order the publication of some information, but it does nothing to fill the huge gaps in the act, as was promised by the Liberals.

We need more changes to have a government that is transparent and open by default. Again, the Liberals talk about openness and transparency, but they do not act in that way.

"The bill is a step backwards in allowing government officials to deny requests for information if they think the request is frivolous or made in bad faith. Public officials should not be given this power, as they will likely use it as a new loophole to deny the public information it has a right know.” Dale Conacher, the co-founder of Democracy Watch, said that.

Stephane Giroux, the president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec said, “The most interesting fact for us was to have access to documents from ministers' offices. False alarm. It was too good to be true.”

In spite of the fact that the President of the Treasury Board is standing up and saying that all these changes have occurred within Bill C-58, the reality is that there are still significant concerns. I think there is concern among Canadians. This past weekend, I had lots of events in my riding, and one of the things I kept hearing about is confidence in the finance minister to continue to do his job, given the circumstances and the besieged state he has been in over the last while. The fact that every single member of the Liberal caucus voted to adjourn debate on this issue calls into question not just Canadians' confidence in the finance minister but the Liberal backbenches' confidence in the finance minister.

The Hill Times today reported that there are concerns among Liberal backbenchers that this is going to affect them in 2019. Do members know the reason they gave for that concern? Many of them will have been here for one term of four years. They are concerned about their pensions. That is what it said in the paper.

How about being concerned about the process of democracy in this country and making sure that no one benefits from having holdings, in the case of the finance minister, that they have not brought forward and been transparent about?

Never mind pensions, we should be focused on what the finance minister is doing by not being transparent and accountable to Canadians and question whether some of the legislation he is putting forward, such as Bill C-27, actually benefits him.

I would remind the House as well that it is not just a matter of benefiting him. What about the benefit to his family? What about his wife? What about his kids? What about his father? How many Morneau Shepell shareholders, or anyone directly or indirectly associated with that family, are benefiting as a result of the policies the finance minister is putting forward? We talk about being open and transparent, but the finance minister has been anything but, and we certainly saw that egregious display today in the House.

As parents, we teach our kids about the difference between right and wrong. We tell our kids what they cannot do and explain it to them. We tell them what they can do and explain the reasons why. We talk often to our kids about character. School systems, through the policies of education, speak about character. They speak about honesty and integrity, yet the finance minister is showing none of those character traits to Canadians with his actions.

We are dealing with a piece of legislation, Bill C-58, that, quite frankly, is difficult to support for many reasons, the least of which is the government not showing any strong movement toward openness and transparency. It is a very top-down approach by the government.

The former information commissioner, from 2007 to 2008, said, “there's no one [in government departments] to review what they choose not to disclose, and I think that goes against the principle of the statute. They've taken the commissioner out of the loop. If you ask for these briefing notes...[and parts of them had been blacked out], you had someone to appeal to.”

This is no longer the case with Bill C-58.

He went on, “We can't even go to a court. It's one step forward, two steps back.”

We have seen a lot of one step forward and two steps back with the government. My fear is that the openness and transparency the Liberals ran on are not there anymore. We have seen that the finance minister cannot even answer a simple question. He will not even answer a simple question. Quite frankly, after seeing this display we have been seeing over the course of the last several months to questions being asked, how can we have any faith? If the finance minister will not even answer a simple question, how can we expect the whole of government to be open, honest, and transparent?

I am saddened by what I see, quite frankly, as a new parliamentarian. I know the other side is going to say that there were circumstances in the past when similar issues happened. We are not talking about circumstances in the past. The Liberals were the same opposition that stood and talked about the egregiousness of the actions of previous governments. They ran to be different. They said that they were going to impose real change. We have seen nothing to suggest anything different. We are seeing a government that is more inward. We are seeing a government that is controlled from the top down. We are seeing a government where the Prime Minister's Office runs everything. Not just on this issue but on multiple issues, anything but what they said has come true.

Conservatives are not going to support Bill C-58. I certainly call into question the finance minister. I call into question his ability to manage the financial affairs of the country, given the circumstances we have seen over the course of the last several months.

Despite their campaign promises, the Liberals have failed to increase government openness and transparency with this bill. As I have said, it is no surprise. This is effectively a government that chooses to publish when it is accountable to Canadians. It is not being accountable all the time. It is going to pick and choose when it wants to be accountable to Canadians. In practice, what the Liberals have effectively done is give themselves the power to refuse to respond to access to information requests they find embarrassing. Under the principle of openness and transparency, should not everything be responded to?

I understand that there might be matters of national security that are not in the public interest, but this is something different from what they ran on, as far as openness and transparency goes. With the changes proposed by the Liberals, less information would be available to Canadians. Moreover, the Liberals would do nothing to address unacceptable delays, so we would continue to see that information punted down the field and would have unacceptable delays in when that information would be put forward to Canadians.

I spent some time talking about Bill C-58, but in the context of openness and transparency, I cannot emphasize enough the egregious nature of the issue we have been dealing for the last couple of months with the finance minister. Again today there was zero accountability, zero transparency, and zero openness. It is a pattern that has evolved with the Liberal government over the course of the last two years. It should concern all of us. It certainly concerns stakeholders who have an interest in this. However, it is not just a concern to all of us who are here to represent Canadians. It is a concern to all Canadians, because it is the small stuff that leads to the big stuff. If we cannot get simple answers to simple questions in this place of openness and transparency, how can we expect to get that information from a government that proves, day after day, that it is not interested in openness? It is not interested in transparency and accountability, in spite of the fact that it ran on that very thing.

They said they were going to be different. The reality is, and we have seen it over the course of the last two years, that nothing could be further from the truth. With the display of the finance minister over the course of the last couple of months, and certainly today, there is not much faith in the ability of the government to be open, transparent, and accountable. That is why Bill C-58 is flawed. We continue to be concerned about the actions of the finance minister and how the Liberal government and these Liberal backbenchers can continue to endorse the display we are seeing here on a daily basis.

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

Madam Speaker, I must say I am disappointed. The member clearly does not have the intention of raising the quality of debate in the House. First, he barely spoke about Bill C-58. I am proud that we are the first government in 34 years to make major reforms to the Access to Information Act. Second, he was wrong in the few comments he made about the bill. He said it would deny access to information requests that are frivolous or made in bad faith. In fact, the amendments would give the commissioner up-front approval power over any department's request to decline to act on a request because the department believed it was vexatious or in bad faith. The member clearly did not even read the committee's changes and is not up to date on the bill. That is disappointing. It is not a priority for him, clearly.

I also want to note that in its 2006 platform, the Conservative Party made a clear commitment to update the access to information law, and the Conservatives did absolutely nothing in 10 years. Did they never intend to actually deliver on that promise, or did they just not care enough to do a thing about it in 10 years?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the member wants to go down the rabbit hole of not intending to keep promises, I would need a little more than 10 minutes to respond.

What is more important in the context of my speech is the faith of Canadians and how little faith they have in the ability of the government to implement any of its agenda. Over the course of the last two years, we have seen backtracking on electoral reform, and the list of promises the Liberals made is long, which they are not keeping.

I read some of the comments from those stakeholders who have a say in this legislation. Is the hon. member saying they are wrong? These are their concerns.

In the context of openness and transparency, I spoke a lot about what we saw today in question period. The finance minister is not being open and transparent, so how can we have any faith in the Liberal government to be open and transparent? It is as simple as that.

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

Madam Speaker, what is really disturbing about what the government is doing is the level of cynicism by which it has approached this.

The Prime Minister ran on an issue of trust of Canadians. He told them he would create an open and transparent government. Access to information was actually his very first electoral promise. When we look at what the Liberals have done, they have given the tools to the bureaucracy to limit, obstruct, and shut down access to information requests that they do not like.

The President of the Treasury Board stood in the House and told Canadians not to worry because the government would now publish the mandate letters of the ministers. Those are public anyway. Do the Liberals think Canadians are stupid?

When the President of the Treasury Board says not to worry, that the government will bring forward changes to now have the expenses for ministerial travel made public, which they are already posted, do Liberals think Canadians are stupid? This is a fundamental question about trust. Access to information is about holding government to account when government does not want to be held accountable.

Why does my hon. colleague think the government ignored every single recommendation from the Information Commissioner who wanted to work with Parliament to improve this act?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, why did the government ignore every request of the Information Commissioner? It is a government that ignores a lot of information from a lot of people. An ideology exists within the government. It is a top-down ideology. It does not care what other people say. It does not care what the experts say. I think the government is intent on ramming through whatever it thinks will work for it, politically.

The hon. member brings up an interesting point about the bureaucracy. We have seen many circumstances around here where Liberals hide behind the bureaucracy. They are like petulant little children. They do not accept responsibility for anything, and they blame everybody. We have seen that with the Ethics Commissioner. If something goes wrong here, or if there is information that the Liberals do not want out, or that gets out, the first thing the Liberals will do is blame the bureaucracy, blame the bureaucrats.

We have seen a habit of not accepting any responsibility on the part of ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and even Liberal backbenchers. It is no surprise to me that the Liberals are going to put up a shield between them and the bureaucracy, and then blame it if something goes wrong.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague across talked about the concerns on the quality of debate. I was very intrigued and interested in my colleague's speech today. We have talked about major reforms that the Liberals promised, and my colleague said he did not have time to go into them. We can look at things that have failed, such as electoral reforms, Standing Order reforms, tax reforms, reforms in the military, and now accountability. I think Canadians probably expect the same kinds of results we have seen in so many of these other areas.

One of the reasons we will see that is because of what we saw today in question period. We had a minister who was questioned a dozen times on one question, and all he had to do was say “No”. He did not have to say yes or no, just “No”.

Could my colleague address that issue of just how systemic this kind of refusal to be accountable to the Canadian people is in the government? Is that the reason why so many of these promised reforms have never turned out?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have sat here the last two years and I have seen the systemic misinformation. I have seen the lack of accountability, responsibility, and transparency.

I brought it back to one thing, and I have talked to my constituents about this. They hold total contempt for this place, and we saw that with the actions of the finance minister today. It is complete contempt. To the Liberals and the Prime Minister, this place does not matter. What matters most is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. If the Liberals can do selfies, put it out there, and tell people how great everything is, then somehow that is the way the Liberals think they should govern.

However, members of Parliament are sent to this place to represent their constituents. They are not sent to this place to sit 20 feet away from a government that has contempt for this place and would rather govern on social media than be in this place and be accountable to Canadians. That is the problem right now.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is difficult to listen to the hon. member. It is as if the previous government did not even exist. I am looking at a headline from 2014, published by Global News, entitled “Harper government gets failing grade in freedom-of-information audit”. When the member makes these criticisms, I wonder if he keeps in mind that the previous government, the Harper government, failed categorically in every regard when it came these matters.

Also, since the member went a bit off topic, why did the universal child care benefit of the previous government have a tax applied to it? Our CCB has no tax applied to it and 90% of Canadian families are doing better as a result.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, there the Liberals go again, not accepting any responsibility but putting blame on anybody else. I will remind the House and the member that this was your promise to be open and transparent. It was not the promise of Stephen Harper. You made that promise.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. I want to remind the member that he is to address his answers to the Chair, and he has 18 seconds to wrap it up.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was the Liberals' promise. Why are they not accountable to this? There is as much criticism about Bill C-58 on their part than there was on the previous government. Do people know what the 2017 and 2018 headline will read? “Liberal government fails to be open and transparent.”

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

Madam Speaker, as always, I am deeply honoured to rise in the House and speak for the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be speaking tonight to Bill C-58 and to express my deep concern about the government's attack on the access to information system.

The folks back home may not pay a lot of attention to access to information because it is the stuff of journalists, researchers and opposition politics. However, access to information is one of the fundamental principles of an accountable democracy. In order to hold government to account, we need to know who is involved when the decisions in the backroom are made. We need to have some manner of light shone into the dark rooms where the power brokers are to ensure a level of accountability. That is the role of the Access to Information Act.

At one point, Canada was well-respected for the Access to Information Act brought in a number of decades ago. However, year by year Canada has slipped in its level of credibility. We are going to be talking about some specific examples of how that plays out tonight.

We are in a situation now where we have a Prime Minister who won so much support across the country because the very first step he took in offering his vision as a new leader was on access to information and open government. His vision for Parliament would be the opposite of the Stephen Harper government, which was considered so controlling and secretive. People put their trust in the Prime Minister. I remember thinking this was really bold, a leader who was willing to make the changes necessary for access to information.

I have grown increasingly concerned that more and more our Parliament has become a sideshow. It has become a Potemkin democracy, where MPs get to play out in the House, but the real decisions are made to benefit those who are not accountable. When the Prime Minister makes a promise on access to information and then undermines it in such a cynical manner, Canadians have a right to know how this happens and how it affects them.

With respect to Bill C-58, which is supposed to change the access to information laws in the country, the President of the Treasury Board says that we should not worry because Canadians will now have access to the mandate letters for the ministers. Is that not already public? He also said that we should not worry because Canadians would now get to know the travel budgets of various ministers. That is already public.

However, what we do not have is the ability in this case for the Access to Information Commissioner to ensure that all documents are posted. One thing we have found with government is that certain documents are not all that helpful to it. Remember when the Minister of Indigenous Services racked up all those thousands of dollars riding around Markham in a limousine? That was embarrassing to government and it did not want that information released. Therefore, if we allow government to release what it wants, it will not release what is embarrassing. However, we need accountability.

Therefore, I will talk about Bill C-58 in the context of a couple of specific cases so people will understand exactly what we are talking about. I am going to talk about the issue of St. Anne's residential school.

As the government is leading its attack to limit the ability of people to access information, I am dealing with the Access to Information Commissioner on the three-and-a-half-year obstruction by federal officials in the justice department to suppress and blackout who made key decisions regarding the justice department's response to the survivors of St. Anne's residential school. In telling the story, we begin to understand why it is so important to have an accountable system for access to information.

St. Anne's residential school was in the region I represent, the community of Fort Albany. If we look at the horrific history of the residential schools, the story of what was done to the children at St. Anne's year in and year out, generation upon generation, it stands among the most horrifying of stories in the country's history. It was a veritable concentration camp of torture and sexual abuse of children.

In 1992, the survivors of St. Anne's came together in Fort Albany to talk about their experience. For the first time, many of them began to talk about the levels of sexual abuse, rape, and forced abortions to which children were subjected.

Edmund Metatawabin, who is chief, brought this to the Ontario Provincial Police and demanded a major police investigation. To its credit, the Ontario Provincial Police, with Sergeant Delguidice in the Cochrane division, undertook a massive investigation of the crimes committed against those children. They identified over 180 perpetrators of rape, torture, and abuse of children. They gathered 1,000 witness statements of that abuse from the survivors and students who were there. They gathered 12,000 pages of police testimony and documentation, including subpoenaed records from the Catholic church in the diocese of Moosonee, to build a picture of what went on in that institution year in and year out.

In 2003, there was an effort with the survivors and the then federal government of Paul Martin, I believe, to try to find a solution. The survivors were shocked at the aggressiveness of the federal government to fight and deny every single case, no matter the evidence. At that time, all of the evidence the police had gathered in Ontario had led to a number of convictions in an Ontario court against the perpetrators of the abuse at St. Anne's, but let us face it: the big ones got away. The priests and bishops who were involved got away. Some of them were dead, some of the perpetrators could not be found, but a number of people were convicted in an Ontario court.

However, in 2004, the justice department wanted access to that trove of evidence to prepare the defence of the number one defendant, which was Canada. When it applied for access to the police documentation, it told the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that it would be unfair to Canada, which was in charge of this institution, in preparing its defence if it did not have all of the evidence. The key officials in the justice department were involved in the application to obtain those records, and they got the records, some 12,000 pages. They got the names of the perpetrators. They were preparing for the major civil litigation trials against Canada.

In 2007-08, the process for the Indian residential schools settlement agreement was set up as an alternative so that the federal government could escape these cases. The federal government agreed at that time to set up the independent assessment process, the IAP. The IAP was to be a non-confrontational process in which the survivors could tell their stories. That is how they told the survivors it would play out, but of course it did not play out like that at all for the survivors of St. Anne's. Therefore, the justice department wore two hats. The first hat was to obtain all of the evidence, prepared in so-called narratives, so that the adjudicators and claimant lawyers could use it to make it easier for the claimants. The justice department acted as the gatherer of evidence. The justice department's other hat was as lawyer for the defendant, Canada, and its number one goal was limiting the payouts.

In the case of St. Anne's residential school, the justice department had an obligation to prepare a list of all documentation, listing all the known crimes and sexual abuse that occurred in that institution, and it presented a document at the hearing stating that there was no known history of sexual abuse at the Fort Albany Indian residential school, St. Anne's. It said there was absolutely no documentation to show any student-on-student abuse at the Fort Albany institution of St. Anne's.

People told their stories, and their cases were thrown out because the justice department did not go there with a non-confrontational attitude. It went in loaded for bear and accused the survivors, who were victims of child rape, of not being able to prove their stories because they could not remember the day the priest raped them, that they could not remember little details. Yet the justice department already knew they were telling the truth because it had all of the evidence.

We had claimants, like claimant H-15019, whose case was thrown out, because the justice department argued there was no proof that a predatory pedophile priest was in St. Anne's Residential School when that child was in that building. That child, who grew into a man who asked for justice from the Government of Canada did not know that the justice department had a long list involving that pedophile priest. The department knew he had been in that building since 1938. From 1938 to 1974 he had free access to rape children, and the Justice Department of Canada lied about it in hearings, suppressed that evidence, and had that case thrown out. How could this have happened in 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Canada?

The greatest moment that I have seen since I have been here and the greatest moment in the history of this Parliament was when Prime Minister Harper stood up in the House and apologized. People in my region wept for days when they heard that apology. They never thought that justice would happen and after hearing the apology they thought it was possible.

People wept when the present Prime Minister gave a powerful speech at the closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I was listening to him. He said that Canada would make this right, that the obligation of the survivors to prove what they went through was over, that Canada would be there for them. That has not been the case with the survivors of St. Anne's Residential School. The justice department continues to take the brass knuckles approach to deny them basic levels of justice.

In 2013 I wrote to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and the justice minister at the time and I asked them who had made the decision to suppress the police evidence in testimony that had these cases thrown out. I asked them both what they were going to do to rectify this clear breach of legal duty. Those ministers said they knew about the evidence but that they were not accountable for presenting it, which was false.

In January 2014, the Ontario Superior Court ordered the previous government and the justice minister to turn over those documents to the independent assessment process to have those cases fairly adjudicated. The government refused. It continued to deny.

The survivors of St. Anne's Residential School had to go back to court in 2015, and this time the government was forced to turn over the documents. However, it had blacked out the names of the perpetrators and the witnesses to make the evidence functionally useless.

For what purpose in a nation like ours would the Government of Canada opt to protect pedophiles, rapists, and sadists by hiding their names? For what possible reason would justice department lawyers, the people who are charged with presenting the law for the people of Canada, go into hearings and challenge survivors who suffered horrific levels of abuse? For what possible reason would the Government of Canada decide to suppress this police evidence? I still have not figured out an answer to that, but it dogs me. I stay up at night trying to figure out what kind of person hired to represent Canada would do this.

In 2013, I applied a simple tool, a tool of all parliamentarians and of all Canadians, by making an access to information request regarding the political decisions that went into suppressing the police testimony and evidence that denied justice to the survivors of St. Anne's Residential School.

For the information of folks back home, when a government does not want to answer a question, it delays. We had a 300-day delay. We knew this was just an attempt by the department not to have to answer the question. The cases were closing down and the ability of survivors who had their cases thrown out to re-appeal the verdicts was coming to an end. It seemed obvious that the justice department would drag this out over three years, because it thought that the cases would be closed and all would be said and done. We waited 300 days, 600 days, then 900 days.

The new government came in and I thought it would change things. It had no reason to oppose survivors of St. Anne's. The new government took the position that it would not turn over any of the political documentation regarding the decision to suppress the police evidence. That was done by the new justice minister and the new Prime Minister.

Therefore, we approached the access to information commissioner, the tool that we use, to ask how is it possible that after three years of delay, they could deny and say they were not obligated to turn over this evidence. This documentation concerns who knew what in the minister's office. This is a question on a political issue that Canadians need answered.

The Information Commissioner and her office are one of the great institutions of our country. She understood the seriousness of this. It was not a vexatious request; it was about justice. She challenged the justice department. We were on the verge of being in court with the justice department to find out what was being said in those offices when they suppressed that police evidence. The justice department agreed to turn over four batches of information over a period of a year. The first batch of information was about 90% blacked out. The second batch of 3,000 pages we just received was entirely blacked out.

When the government says it wants the right to refuse vexatious requests, what it means by vexatious are the requests that would give it political grief. It wants to be able to turn those down.

The folks who survived St. Anne's Residential School, who were taken from their families, who had their identities stripped from them, who had their rights taken away from them, who were left in the hands of abusers and torturers, have a right to ask why Parliament failed them. They have a right to ask why the justice department of our country continues to deny and challenge them and obstruct their basic rights for redress. Part of those answers may lie in the courts, but part of those answers lie in the access to information request. We have a right to know who advised the politicians to do this.

I would like to say that the abuse of the children at St. Anne's has come to an end because of these beautiful apologies, but it has not. We now have, in the case of claimant H-15019 and claimant C14114, a case that was thrown out because she did not have any documentation. She was unable to prove that when she was assaulted in St. Anne's Residential School it was known by administration. Then, after her case was thrown out, she learned there were all these documents. She attempted to have her case reopened. The Government of Canada said she could not reopen her case because her case was adjudicated. We are talking about a child victim of rape. What possible reason would the Government of Canada have to suppress police testimony about child rape? What possible reason could it have to defy the Ontario Superior Court and black out the names of the perpetrators? For what possible reason would it black out all of the political documentation on what was said in the minister's office regarding this decision?

For what possible reason, right now, at this time, would they be in the hearing saying “Okay, we've been finally forced to hand over the police testimony, but it is inadmissible”. Why is it inadmissible? It is inadmissible because it has not been tested. What they are saying to the survivors is that it does not matter that we are having to present 12,000 pages of police documentation of the perpetrators, because the survivors have to find a witness to come in and be tested.

The trauma to the communities I represent is a direct highway from St. Anne's Residential School to the suicide crisis of our young people today. Talk to anyone in the community and they will say that trauma continues to kill children, and yet we have justice department lawyers saying that evidence cannot be used unless they bring forward a survivor to be re-challenged by the justice department.

I will close on this. We do have a survivor who is willing to come forward and verify the testimony. The justice department said she cannot be allowed to speak because she has already spoken. Can someone explain that to me? That is why we need access to information. It is to understand the perfidious nature of what is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Beaches—East York.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have to say my colleague highlighted the problems, in his view, of creating a requirement or an ability to decline requests that are vexatious and frivolous. That was a recommendation from the Information Commissioner. When we undertook at our committee a study of the Access to Information Act, that was one of our recommendations based on the evidence. We did hear concerns and testimony about the culture of delay and we heard concerns about governments having this ability not just to refuse for vexatious and frivolous reasons but for other reasons as well, and so we made an amendment. The member previous said we did not listen to any of the recommendations from the Information Commissioner, but in fact we did. A specific amendment that we made was to ensure that, where the government is refusing access on any of these new grounds, the Information Commissioner must first sign off. I wonder what the member thinks about that.

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

Madam Speaker, what I think of that is not a lot.

I do not know if the hon. member read the Information Commissioner's report of the government's recommendations and its plan. The Information Commissioner said this is a complete failure of every single major promise the Prime Minister made on issues of access to information, and I am absolutely appalled to see the current government members standing up there and saying they are going to give the minister a few little efforts here while they are leaving it in the hands of the bureaucracy to decide what is vexatious, that they are leaving it in the hands of the bureaucracy to decide whether they now have to have the specific issue, specific subject matter, the specific type of request, and the specific period. That might seem really great for government to be able to limit because it can throw those cases out.

I would refer him to Mr. Peter Di Gangi's work with the Algonquin Nation Secretariat. If the member listened to any of the indigenous voices who came forward, they spoke on how this would be used by the crown because it is the crown that is always a defendant with first nations and it would be used by the crown to be able throw out indigenous claims. It would be able to limit indigenous justice. The Information Commissioner has spoken on this. Therefore, the Prime Minister said that it is nation to nation, but no, it is still the bureaucracy deciding what information indigenous communities can and cannot have.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Beaches—East York was aiming to point out that the member made some inaccurate comments, and he just reinforced the mistakes of his speech. I am concerned that he may have prepared and presented his comments without taking a look at what the committee did to address the commissioner's report. Yes, the commissioner had criticism. The commissioner has one perspective on this, the access perspective. The committee also heard from the Privacy Commissioner and others who represented other interests.

That being said, the committee put over 12 amendments forward, most of which were to actually address the very concerns the member has been raising. I think we are all touched by the challenges of the St. Anne's residential school. We all want what is best for first nations' healing and reconciliation. Therefore, there were specific provisions in the committee's amendments to ensure that it was very clear that a “large or broad request, or one that causes the government discomfort, does not of itself represent bad faith on the part of the requester” and that the ministries have a duty to consult to make sure that in their duty to assist they are assisting requesters like the very requesters whom the member was talking—

[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.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I thank the member. He will have approximately six minutes for questions and comments the next time this bill is before the House.

Bill C-58—Time Allocation Motion

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders of the day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposable of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this time allocation motion is for a highly imperfect piece of proposed legislation that deserves much greater debate and consideration by the Liberal government. It has been condemned by Canadians across the spectrum, by those who would demand the right to know how they are governed through access to information. It has been dismissed by the Information Commissioner herself as a regressive piece of legislation. She indicated quite clearly that the status quo would be preferable to the proposed law, which is being debated at third reading today.

The President of the Treasury Board has made excuses, and he urged Canadians, with a slight Churchillian twist, not to allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. Well, there is very little good in Bill C-58, which came through committee with some significant, but very few, amendments to correct a poorly written piece of legislation.

This piece of proposed legislation is beyond redemption. I would ask the President of the Treasury Board why he does not simply withdraw Bill C-58 and go back to the drawing board.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Thornhill, who was a minister in the previous Harper government, is in fact very consistent. He is effectively advocating that we do nothing to update the Access to Information Act, which is consistent what the Conservatives did in the past, because for nine years they did absolutely nothing to strengthen the act, despite the fact their platform committed in 2006 to modernizing that act. They passed 250 pieces of legislation over the subsequent nine years, but not one of them touched access to information.

We are the first government in 34 years to act to significantly modernize, improve, and strengthen the access to information regime. For the first time ever, we would be providing order-making power to the Information Commissioner. For the first time ever, we would be applying the Access to Information Act to ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office for a strengthened regime of proactive disclosure, which is very much consistent with the principle of open by default.

Again, I commend my friend and colleague for his consistency, because today, by advocating that we not proceed with this modernization, he is fact being very consistent with the Conservative government he was part of, which did absolutely nothing to strengthen access to information. However, we are not necessarily listening to that, because we believe it is time to improve the access to information regime.

The member also referred to the amendments from committee that we have embraced and supported. Again, this was not something the previous Conservative government did very frequently. to actually engage committees respectfully and accept their advice. We believe that committees can help strengthen this legislation. In fact, some of the clarifications achieved through these amendments are consistent with our intention, which is to have a stronger and more accountable access to information system. We believe very strongly that these steps are in the right direction.

Furthermore, there will be a full mandatory review to commence within a year of this bill being passed. It would be the first five-year review, and subsequently there would be mandatory five-year reviews, which will ensure that the act never becomes as outdated as it is today. We are looking forward to engaging not just in terms of the specific changes proposed today, but we also believe that when we commence the first mandatory review, it will be informed by some of our understanding of the impact of these changes, which will help inform future changes.

The other thing is that in the movement towards proactive disclosure, as we see an increase in particular types of demand-based requests, that is a signal to our government and future governments to move them over to the proactive disclosure category.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, please be sure to allow about as much time for answers as for questions.

Once again, we are talking about the government steamroller. This is the 27th time it has used closure to shut down debate on these issues. Its record is even worse than the Harper government's. There have been 25% more closure and time allocation motions under the Liberals.

Is the real reason the Liberals are using this legislative bulldozer again, which they have used 25% more often than the Harper government, that they have ignored the Information Commissioner's recommendations? They have not dealt with the issue of delays or exemptions. However, they have created new loopholes so the public will be cut off from access to information.

Is that not the real reason they are shutting down debate today? The more debate there is in this House, the more that Canadians become aware that the Liberals are breaking yet another promise.

The President of the Treasury Board talked about consistency. I have to admit that the Liberals are very consistent in breaking their promises. Here again is a broken promise that the Liberal government is trying to shove under the carpet by bulldozing this bill through the House of Commons.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He and I served at committee together in opposition and he will recall how little regard the Conservative government had for opposition members' amendments at committee. That stands in contrast to what our government is doing.

We have worked with the access to information committee in accepting amendments that we believe strengthen the legislation. For instance, the Information Commissioner will be given the authority to force a department to obtain approval prior to denying a request for any reason. That significantly strengthens the role of the Information Commissioner. We have addressed many of the concerns raised through the committee process, which stands in stark contrast to the work of the previous Conservative government at committee.

Strengthening proactive disclosure is an important part of the Access to Information Act. When we were in opposition and the member for Papineau, now the Prime Minister, was the leader of the Liberal Party, we led the charge for proactive disclosure of MPs' expenses. The Conservatives followed through quite quickly because they understood the importance of it. The NDP were not that happy about proactively disclosing MPs' expenses. I guess they do not like proactive disclosure today either.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I just want to remind the hon. members that we only have 30 minutes. If they can keep their questions and answers as concise as possible, that would certainly be appreciated by everyone in the House.

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do regret that the hon. President of the Treasury Board has taken so long with his answers when we opposition members are restricted to a finite 30 minutes to complain about the fact that our debate on this very important access to information bill will be restricted.

I want to put this directly to the President of the Treasury Board. I am very pleased that one of my amendments was accepted at committee, but even with that small measure, I cannot vote for this bill. As well, I do not know if we will be allowed to debate the bill that we cannot vote for, because access to information has become freedom from information under the government.

I would urge the President of the Treasury Board to release us from time allocation on this debate.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, my colleague and leader of the Green Party, will fulfill her function as a member of this place and determine how she wants to vote on this. However, let us be very clear that this bill is an advancement in Canada's Access to Information Act.

This bill provides the Information Commissioner with order-making powers for the first time. It actually expands the access to information regime to cover over 240 Government of Canada entities from the ports to the courts.

In terms of balance, we have heard concerns from the Privacy Commissioner that we may be going too far, and concerns from the Information Commissioner, which we have reflected in our acceptance of some amendments.

We are listening, but we are also acting. That is something that no government has done in 34 years.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable that a government that claims to be open and transparent, that claims to want to consult broadly, is once again shutting down debate, especially on this bill that is so flawed.

We already heard my colleague talk about how everyone has panned this, from the Information Commissioner to the media, to the public, to anyone who knows anything about access to information, and yet we are not getting an opportunity to speak on it.

Even more grievous, this is another example of a broken election promise. The Liberals promised they would allow access to information requests to ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. This bill clearly has nothing in there on that.

Could I ask the President of the Treasury Board why he is breaking another Liberal campaign promise?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, our government actually published the Prime Minister's mandate letters to ministers. In fact, we recently started publishing the mandate trackers.

One of the things the mandate letters committed to, and members can go to the Prime Minister's site and the Government of Canada website to see this, was to modernize the Access to Information Act to apply it appropriately to ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. In fact we are doing that with proactive disclosure, for instance, of briefing materials for new ministers, everything from question period binders to briefing materials before we appear before parliamentary committees, to mandate letters to ensure that no future government regresses. A lot of these proactive disclosures have simply been practises from which any government in the future could regress.

Today, what this would do, by codifying into law some of these advances made by our government and past Liberal governments, including that of Paul Martin, which was the first to proactively disclose ministers' expenses, is to ensure that no future government could easily regress, because they would have to come back to Parliament to change the law.

This is real progress.

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

Mr. Speaker, I find all this incredibly ironic. Just as we are dealing with a bill on access to information, the government decides to deprive everyone who is listening to our debates of the opportunity to obtain that information. Just as we should be discussing whether this time allocation is urgently needed, the minister instead promotes his own bill. This is a truly Kafkaesque situation. My question is very clear, and I hope to get an answer that relates to my question and not the bill.

Why is it so urgent to deprive parliamentarians of their right to debate this bill?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, after more than 30 years, we think it is very important to take action and modernize the Access to Information Act. That is exactly what we are doing with this bill. Maybe my colleague does not see the pressing need to modernize the Access to Information Act, but I disagree with him on that. We are making changes because modernizing the Access to Information Act is very important. Maybe he does not agree with our government's priorities and the need to modernize the Access to Information Act, but that is what we are doing with this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I note from the debate that the Conservative members are against our modernization of the access to information law.

In his earlier remarks, the President of the Treasury Board commented on the commitment in the 2006 Conservative platform to do what our government is now doing, and yet for 10 years they did absolutely nothing.

What are the hon. minister's thoughts on why the Conservative government failed to take a single action to update this law?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my friend and colleague is doing a great job as Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and I appreciate her work and support on an ongoing basis.

The previous government, the Conservative government, was the first government in the British Commonwealth to be found in contempt of Parliament for not providing information to Parliament. The Conservatives were heavily shrouded in secrecy during their regime. We have opened up government. We are raising the bar in openness and transparency, as we did in opposition.

One thing I want to also explain is the degree to which we have listened and are acting on what we have heard. For instance, we have heard concerns raised by indigenous organizations, including the National Claims Research Directors. This is why our government strongly supports amendments that have been made at committee, which would directly address those concerns. For instance, large or broad requests, or ones that simply cause the government discomfort, will not constitute bad faith, in and of themselves, on the part of a requester. We know the importance of access to information with respect to claims settlement and we want—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I remind the hon. President of the Treasury Board of the rule that answers should be approximately the same length as the questions.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of my colleague and friend, the President of the Treasury Board. Unfortunately, the bill he is reflecting on would not do what he purports it would do. Let me give a couple of quick examples.

First, when the ethics committee was studying this bill, it made 28 recommendations. However, the Liberal-dominated committee only accepted one of those recommendations.

Second, the bill purports to strengthen the act by allowing the Information Commissioner to order access to information from ministers' offices, as well as the Prime Minister's Office. However, what the minister has not mentioned is that while the Information Commissioner may have the ability to order such requests, it does not make it mandatory for a minister or the Prime Minister's Office to respect that order.

In fact, as the Information Commissioner has already pointed out, quite rightfully, had the current version of the Access to Information Act, which the government says strengthens the act, been in place during the sponsorship scandal, we would have never found out all of the illegal goings-on by the former Liberal government. Information Commissioner Legault said that if Bill C-58, in its current form, has been passed, it would have meant that journalist Daniel Leblanc, back in the early 2000s, would have been unable to get the information, which eventually led to the sponsorship scandal being unveiled to the Canadian public.

How can the minister possibly state, with any veracity, that the bill would actually strengthen access to information, when in fact all the witnesses pointed out it would do exactly the opposite?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

First, Mr. Speaker, by giving the Information Commissioner order-making power, she can demand that a government department or agency provide information. The government department or agency would have 30 days in which to either provide the information or challenge her in court, with a decision ultimately being rendered by a judge. Government departments and agencies are not going to challenge the Information Commissioner in court without feeling they have a reasonable chance of defending their claims. This would provide the Information Commissioner with real authority that she has not had in the past.

In fact, the committee passed over a dozen amendments, which will help further strengthen, clarify, and make perfectly clear our government's intent to strengthen the access to information regime. There have been over a dozen amendments accepted, which is probably more amendments accepted by a government from a committee than the previous government did in nine years. We have taken this seriously.

For instance, we have heard from representatives of indigenous claims organizations and have addressed those concerns four square. We will continue to engage Parliament respectfully and strengthen the legislation.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quote from the hon. member in 2013 about time allocation. He said, “By moving forward with time allocation today in the House, Conservatives are further reducing that accountability to Canadian families, Canadian citizens and Canadian taxpayers.” Why does he not have the same answer and the same position on time allocation today as he had in 2013?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that modernizing Canada's Access to Information Act is important. We have heard from the New Democrats that they do not believe it is important to do this. They would rather not make this kind of progress. We have heard from the Conservatives that they do not believe it is a priority. It is a priority. We have been waiting for 34 years to do this and our government is actually getting it done.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has said, it has taken 30 years to modernize these laws, which, in my way of thinking, means there is no urgency to rush the bill through Parliament. In fact, we should take some time and let parliamentarians, who are sent here by our constituents, actually have the ability to represent those views.

What exactly is the urgency to rush this through now? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the member's colleague stood in the House and represented to members of the House that there was no change whatsoever in the law or in the interpretation around applicants for disability credits suffering from diabetes and the fact then that an internal memo came out through access to information showing that this was actually false? Is the government so concerned about shutting down dialogue and debate that it is worried that people in the House will show Canadians that a member of his cabinet misrepresented things in the House, specifically revealed by access to information?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in the debate this morning, we have heard a couple of things from the New Democrats. One is that they have said they want this legislation withdrawn. They do not want to move forward with modernizing the act. They have made their minds up. For them the debate is over. They are against this. Then they say that they want more debate on it. Their position has ossified and it has not changed. Therefore, that is a signal to us that it is time to move forward.

The New Democrats are saying on one hand that they have made their minds up, that they are against this and from their perspective the debate is over. On the other hand, they say they want to have more time to consider it. If they have already made their minds up and their position is not changing, as they have said, then I am curious as to why they want more time to debate it. Surely to goodness we can reach a decision. Our government has reached a decision. It is high time to modernize Canada's Access to Information Act. After 34 years, we are the first government doing it and we are going to get it done.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board's main argument is pathetic. It makes no sense.

He pats himself on the back in the House for wanting to listen to people and be transparent, but now he is limiting debate in the House of Commons on a bill on access to information.

In committee, the NDP proposed 20 amendments. How many were accepted by the Liberals who claim to listen to everyone? Zero. Not one NDP amendment was accepted in committee at report stage. That is disingenuous if we are trying to improve access to information, which has not been reformed or modernized in 30 years. What is the problem?

He says that the first nations are pleased and that ministers could provide proactive disclosure and a right to oversight over proactive government materials. The commissioner will not enjoy the same right to oversight over proactive materials.

Where is the transparency? Where is the modernization of an access to information bill that has been completely botched by the Liberals?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, after more than 30 years, we are the first government to modernize the Access to Information Act.

We know that the NPD do not like proactive disclosure. They did not like it when our Prime Minister led the way by proactively disclosing members' expenses when we were in opposition. They still do not like proactive disclosure today. In a way they are being consistent, but I do not agree with their position. They do not see the urgency in modernizing this legislation. We will continue to work toward modernizing the Access to Information Act. After more than 30 years, it is high time that we did just that.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons why I went into politics was to fight against pervasive cynicism, which I find disheartening because I truly believe in our democracy. The government's 27th time allocation motion only fuels that cynicism.

If it is important to modernize the Access to Information Act, which has not been updated for 30 years, why did the Liberals set aside almost all of the Information Commissioner's recommendations? Why did they ignore their election promise and dismiss all the amendments?

The President of the Treasury Board says that it is a step in the right direction. Why do we want to talk about it and take the time to debate it? It is because it is too small a step and it does not point us in the direction we want to take. Canadians want transparency and they now have access to means of communication. They want to be informed, they are asking us questions, and they want us to truly represent them in the House. A time allocation motion like today's does not let us do that.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the committee adopted a dozen amendments to strengthen and clarify our government's intent to improve and reform our access to information system.

I can remember when we were in opposition and when I was in committees with members of the NDP. I think they would remember as well those times when no amendments would be accepted by parliamentary committees. Committees were viewed as branch plants of ministers' offices.

We are strengthening the parliamentary role and the independence of committees to modify and indeed strengthen laws. That is exactly what has happened here, with a dozen amendments being accepted and adopted by the government. She asked why the committee did not pass amendments from the NDP. That is a matter for the committee. Maybe they were not very good amendments.

However, the fact is that the committee did adopt 12 amendments. We are going to work with committees on a number of issues and legislation because we believe committees can strengthen those. Perhaps the NDP can—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the minister an opportunity to clarify so he does not go on a list of other ministers who have said things that they then have had to retract. He mentioned that nothing had happened in 34 years. Because of the types of things that happened in previous Liberal governments, our government immediately presented the Federal Accountability Act. It strengthened the role of the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner. It banned secret donations to political candidates. It provided real whistleblower protection. It strengthened public access to information. He seems to have forgotten this. He says that nothing has happened in 34 years.

He also seems to have forgotten, as an answer to one of my colleague's questions earlier, about why that had to happen. Perhaps he could mention the things that occurred so we do not have to go back over his words to see exactly how accurate they are.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I said that the previous government had not acted to modernize the Access to Information Act, and that is accurate. He spoke to other initiatives.

Joe Clark, a Progressive Conservative prime minister, was the first to bring forward access to information in 1979, but it was actually made law by the next government, the Pierre Trudeau Liberal government, in 1983. There is some cross-partisan authorship with respect to access to information, but we are the first government to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #431

Access to Information Act

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

I wish to inform the House that, because of the proceedings on the time allocation motion, government orders will be extended by 30 minutes.

The House resumed from November 27 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.

Third Reading

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent has six minutes remaining in the questions and comments period.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, here we have substantial legislation, where for the first time in the last three decades plus, as the President of the Treasury Board has talked about, we have legislation that is going to significantly change our access to information system.

However, once again, we see the Conservatives resisting change. We do not quite understand why that is. I can recall a whole proactive disclosure movement here on the floor, led by the leader of the Liberal Party at that time. It did not take long for the Conservatives to realize that it was a good thing.

Would my colleague across the way equally recognize that this, too, is a good thing, because it expands proactive disclosure to include ministers? Would the member not agree that proactive disclosure, at least that aspect of the legislation, is a good thing and worthy of supporting?

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just give a history lesson. As the President of the Treasury Board said a few minutes ago, the first prime minister who tabled something about the subject in this bill was the Right Hon. Joe Clark, in 1979. It was a Progressive Conservative government that did that. In 1983, there was another pitch to do that. We recognize that it was made by the Liberals. That is fine.

For all those years, there was no fixing of this issue. It is not bad that we reopen the debate. We welcome that. However, as far as we are concerned, the situation is now worse than it was before. If they want to touch up a bill and be proactive, it must be good, not wrong. It is not us who said that. It is not the Conservative Party of Canada that said that. The commissioner responsible on the Hill said it is worse today than it was before.

If we want real change that is good change, this is not a good change today.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to tell me why it seems so easy for this government to break yet another election promise.

The Liberals promised to improve transparency and modernize the Access to Information Act. The small step in the right direction that they are currently taking is certainly not enough to say that they are improving transparency or modernizing the Access to Information Act.

What does the member think about this additional broken promise?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for her very relevant question. I commend her for her political involvement over the past six years or more.

It is important to recognize that the government has good intentions. It wanted to give Canadians greater access to certain information. The problem is that the Liberals promised the moon during the election campaign and they have not accomplished anything close to what they promised. That is the problem.

The Liberals were saying just about anything during the election campaign. On September 2, 2015, they promised to restore home mail delivery in the company of the former mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre. They did not do that. They promised to run small deficits of less than $10 billion, but they did not do that. The deficit is double what they promised. They promised to balance the budget by 2019, and they have absolutely no idea when they will do that. The list goes on and on. This government has a track record of saying one thing during the election campaign and then doing the opposite. The bill, as my NDP colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot said so well, is yet another example of a broken promise.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable can ask a brief question, and the answer will also have to be brief.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, but it will not be easy, because I wanted to talk about the irony of today's situation.

It is quite ironic to be facing a time allocation motion for a bill that is supposed to improve openness and transparency. It is quite ironic, and this is not the first time it has happened. I must be very brief.

I would like my colleague, a seasoned parliamentarian, to tell me whether he has ever seen the government act this way in any of the many Parliaments he has been through.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have not had the privilege of being here in the House of Commons for previous Parliaments.

What is certain is that, as my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable rightly said, whenever the government is in a tight spot and wants to ram a bill through, it cuts parliamentarians' speaking time. As my colleague so aptly put it, it is quite ironic for parliamentarians to be barred from speaking on a bill about transparency. It is unacceptable.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg North will share the time I have to speak today.

As the member of Parliament for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, in Nova Scotia, my riding surrounds the two big cities of Halifax and Dartmouth. We find a very high percentage of veterans in my riding. Some 23% of vets are in Nova Scotia, the highest population per capita. We also have many seniors. The number of seniors increased in my riding by 33% between 2011 and 2016.

I would like to thank the President of the Treasury Board for his excellent leadership, not only in government but also as the cabinet minister for the province of Nova Scotia.

The bill is extremely important to Canadians. It would increase democracy. It would allow for much more public debate. People would have much more information. The accountability and transparency in the bill would continue to allow Canadians to understand better what is happening, why it is happening, and why decisions are taken. Those are key components of the bill.

This has been a long-awaited process. It has been 34 years since we have seen a major overhaul. Things have changed drastically. It has surprised me to hear in the last couple of days the Conservatives continue to say that it is not enough. In the last 10 years, they did not do anything about this. That is why the Conservatives are really good in opposition. They can complain about how they would do it if they were in power, and then once they are in power, they just do not do it. I guess their best place to be is in opposition.

Our government conducted over 320 different types of consultations to gather as much information as possible so we could bring a bill forward. We have to remember that this is a living document. This is not something that is going to sit for the next 34 years. This is going to allow us to review it next year and then every five years. That is how bills should be done to make sure that we are responding to the needs of Canadians and to changes in society.

Why do we have to make changes? We know that we have to be more accountable and more transparent. We, as a government, ran on that issue, but also, things have changed. We have been putting all kinds of documents on paper and storing them on shelves and in cabinets, and we have not been in a position to quickly respond in an efficient way. That has been a major issue.

The bill would add a very important piece, which is proactive publication. We would expand publication to be proactive so that people would have the information. That would save enormous time, because much of the publication would already be online, which is extremely important.

Not only would we be going to all 240 departments, we would also include the Prime Minister's Office and the ministers' offices. That is a major change in this process we are bringing forward.

To show that we are a government that is very progressive, we have accepted up to 10 amendments, which have been integrated into the bill. I have not seen too many past governments, especially in the last 10 years, accept all kinds of amendments to make a bill better and to make sure it is a living bill so that we can make adjustments as needed.

Let us talk about the mandate letter as well. Before the bill was even spoken about, the mandate letter was already open and transparent. Who made that mandate letter public? It was our Liberal government, just as it was our government, 34 years ago, that brought in the act initially. There is a trend here that we should keep focused on.

We accepted amendments from colleagues on disclosure being 30 days or less. This would help make sure that requests came forward quickly and would reduce demand, because there has been a 13% increase yearly in the demands for information. That is major.

I would also like to talk about the Information Commissioner. We would give more power to the Information Commissioner than existed before. Again, we should keep in mind that this is a living document. We are going to make sure that we do it right as we move forward. We would give the Information Commissioner order-making powers to resolve various complaints so that she could look into the issues and provide feedback as to how to proceed.

We would also give the Information Commissioner the final word, so to speak, in denying requests. The department, by itself, could not deny requests. It would have to have written permission or approval from the commissioner. That would be a major change and shows that this bill is a progressive one that would allow us to continue to improve our open and transparent government.

The Information Commissioner would also be able to conduct a review to see if disclosures were complete, as they should be. In other words, there would be some consistency among departments. No department would be able to withhold information that was critical or important. Those changes are very important.

The mandatory reviews would occur at one year and five years, which is very progressive. It would ensure that we continue to do things right for Canadians.

Let us talk about the government and Liberal values, and let us not limit ourselves to the last two years. Liberal values have been crucial in building this great country. By that I mean that it was a Liberal government that brought in the national health care accord. We brought in the OAS way back when. We also brought in changes to the CPP last year, which the Conservative government could not do in 10 years. Are members surprised? I can tell them why. It is a very simple answer. The reason the Tories did not make changes in 10 years is that they never consulted with the provinces. If there is no consultation, there can definitely not be an accord on important issues.

It is also important to realize the transparency we have created. For appointments, such as senators, commissioners, and all kinds of appointments, any Canadian who feels that he or she qualifies can submit his or her name to be approved for various positions. That, by itself, is very transparent and open. We have opened up political financing and fundraising as well.

Let us talk about science. For 10 years, scientists were not allowed to share any opinions or factual information, but with our government, that has all changed, and Canadians are extremely satisfied with that.

In closing, I will say that this government is a progressive government. This government knows that it can and will do better. We are not afraid to take on all kinds of difficult challenges, because we are here for Canadians. This act is very important, but it is only a stepping stone. It is like a ladder. One does not start at the fifth step; it is one step at a time. We will meet the needs of Canadians, because we will be able to review the bill every five years and make the necessary adjustments for Canadians.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague, who waxed eloquent about the guidelines, mandate letters, and the increased accountability of the government. I will read from the mandate letter to the finance minister that was issued in November 2015, which states:

As Minister, you must ensure that you are aware of and fully compliant with the Conflict of Interest Act and Treasury Board policies and guidelines. You will be provided with a copy of Open and Accountable Government to assist you as you undertake your responsibilities. I ask that you carefully read it and ensure that your staff does so as well. I draw your attention in particular to the Ethical Guidelines set out in Annex A of that document, which apply to you and your staff.

Does my colleague believe that the mandate letters were worth the paper they were written on, when we see the kind of disregard that almost all the ministers have had for those mandate letters?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, that is an ironic question really, because the mandate letter the member is referring to does exist, and everyone in the House, as well as all other Canadians, knows what is in the mandate letters. However, when their prime minister gave his mandate letters to his ministers, peekaboo, no one knew what was in them, and so the ministers could do what they wanted to.

Second, the member made the point about the Ethics Commissioner. However, the Minister of Finance did exactly what everyone in this House did, all 338 members of Parliament. They were elected, they were consulted, they gave the information required, they received feedback from the Ethics Commissioner, and they followed that feedback. There was nothing different for the Minister of Finance from anyone else in the House.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to change the tone of the debate, if I may. My colleague has obviously carefully memorized his government's talking points. I congratulate him on saying his lines so eloquently.

However, does he think it is okay that the members of his party are the only ones applauding this bill? I am not talking about the opposition. The experts who have reviewed this bill, including the Information Commissioner, have come out very strongly against it. They believe that overall, the bill is a step backwards.

Does my colleague think it is okay that the Liberal Party is alone in praising this bill? Does he see nothing wrong with the fact that the Liberals are the only people in Canada who think this bill is a step forward?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to change the tone, then I should change it as well and say that the NDP has talked and talked, but I do not know how we could answer to everything they request, because they are never satisfied. If we go 75% of the way, they still say 25%. If we go 125% they still say we could have done 25% more. Listen carefully: This is a living document.

It is a living document that will allow for any necessary changes to be made. We are not going to change the world tomorrow, but we will make sure that when we review the legislation in the coming years, we will be able to better address the concerns of Canadians. We will then see the benefits of this change to Canadian society. Therefore, we will continue with our work.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just to underscore the hypocrisy of what we are hearing from the other side, I think the member eloquently put it that the irony here is that the opposition has an opportunity to criticize these mandate letters, as they have been doing throughout this debate, because of the fact the government is committed to being open and transparent.

Could the member comment on exactly how important that is, not just for us here today but also for the democratic institution we belong to?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, again, these are open and transparent mandate letters that every Canadian is aware of. The Prime Minister's Office has to divulge information and the ministers' offices have to divulge information, as do judges. Everyone is responsible to answer to government, and everyone is responsible to answer to society. This is what the bill would do. However, it is a living document, and we are going to continue to improve it.

We are not sitting back, as the Tories did for the last 10 years, and blindly refusing to do anything on this important file.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Before resuming debate, I want to point out that earlier, when the President of the Treasury Board was speaking, his earpiece was very close to the microphone and we were getting feedback. We seem to be getting feedback again, but it seems to be of a different kind. Therefore, I will remind hon. members that we do have decorum in the House.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by reflecting on one of the questions that was posed as to why the Liberals want to push this forward, yet no one else inside the chamber sees its merit. It is like a flashback of sorts, because this is not the first time that has taken place in regard to this very same issue.

In looking at access to information, the minister responsible, the President of the Treasury Board, has pointed out how long ago it was that substantive changes were previously made to the act. We have to go back to the late 1970s. Ultimately the credit goes to Joe Clark, who introduced the legislation. Nonetheless, let us not confuse the Progressive Conservatives of 1979 with the Conservatives/Reformers of today because there is a substantial difference. There might be some members within that caucus, very few, who could relate to the Progressive Conservatives, but it is more of that Reform faction that is still there in a very real way. It was Pierre Elliott Trudeau then, who took idea of Joe Clark and put it into place, but no prime minister since Pierre Elliott Trudeau has taken on the task of looking at modernizing the legislation. Even though Stephen Harper in a campaign said he would reform the act, that never took place.

Let me focus on the flashback I referred to. When our current Prime Minister became leader of the Liberal Party, the members who served a few years back will recall that the leader of the Liberal Party said he believed in proactive disclosure and that the Liberal Party in third-party status wanted it to apply to all members and political parties inside the chamber. My colleagues will remember the reaction at the time. It was an outright no from the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. We stood alone as the official opposition, and the government of the day said no to proactive disclosure, to the idea that was being promoted by the leader of the Liberal Party. A few months later, and even before that, the leader said that Liberal members of Parliament were expected to provide proactive disclosure of their expenses, of their members' office budgets, and the Liberal Party on its own moved in that direction.

To the credit of the former Conservative government, its members recognized there was merit to that. In fact, it was not that long afterward, a few months later, that the Conservatives said that they too would participate in proactive disclosure. I give them credit for recognizing that as something Canadians wanted to see. My friends, the New Democrats, on the other hand, fought it tooth and nail. They did not want anything to do with proactive disclosure. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, it was the Liberal Party that brought forward an opposition motion that obligated the NDP members to stand in their place and say it was a bad idea. Before that, it was behind the curtains that they were yelling, “no, no, no, bad idea, we do not want it”, saying no to unanimous leave inside the chamber. The New Democrats were almost embarrassed to support it, and ultimately because of that round of embarrassment, they came onside months later, probably closer to a full year later.

When my colleague on the New Democrat benches across the way talks about the government not having the support of the official opposition or the NDP for the bill, I would point out that we did not have their support back then either. The Conservatives saw the light a little sooner than the New Democrats. The New Democrats saw the light after being shoved into it.

What we are debating today is further proactive disclosure to include not only members of Parliament but also the Prime Minister's Office, ministers' offices, and other independent offices. Why would the NDP, in particular, but the Conservatives also, not recognize the true value of what is proposed in this legislation? I can understand the unholy alliance that has taken place, especially during question period and on certain issues, between the New Democrats and the Conservatives, but I do not quite understand why they persist in saying that this is bad legislation. Access to information has not been modernized for decades. As my colleague from the Atlantic coast pointed out, not only will this legislation be changed today, but within the legislation we also have a review clause. Therefore, by passing this legislation, we would be mandating in law that the legislation be reviewed periodically so that we do not have a 30-year gap between the times that we look at ways to improve access to information.

Another aspect worthy of note is how we are empowering and enabling the commissioner to require and request reports or comments on specific issues that have been brought to his or her attention by members of the House and others. I would argue that is a significant and positive achievement. I would have thought that members would easily support this expansion of the commissioner's ability to require comments.

Many of those who are listening to or following the debate might ask what proactive disclosure is. Often, there are individuals who want to try to draw out more regular information from government. We have seen that with governments of all political stripes. Proactive disclosure is one of the ways we can deal with the many different types of questions being asked of the commissioner or the departments in the first place. As opposed to requests having to come in, the information would automatically be made available. This service will better facilitate the flow of information. It will ensure that there is a higher sense of accountability and transparency in government. Members should not be surprised by this. Not only did the leader of the Liberal Party initiate the debate on transparency and accountability through proactive disclosure, but we even talked about enhancing it more in the last federal election. That is exactly what we have done. For example, we require that mandate letters and revised mandate letters to ministers be incorporated. Some might ask why we would do that. It is because this Prime Minister has made that information public. There is great value in that. For the first time, the public has access to what the Prime Minister is mandating ministers do within their departments and what some of those expectations are. The briefing packages to ministers are also being considered for proactive disclosure.

There is a list of things that are eligible and will be incorporated under proactive disclosure. There is a litany of things that I believe clearly demonstrate that this Prime Minister wants to and is prepared to bring in legislation to ensure we are more transparent, accountable, and that future governments would also have to live within this legislative framework. I believe this is a very strong positive.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of proactive disclosure or mandate letters, clearly all of this is empty rhetoric when it comes from the Liberal Party. I read a brief excerpt from the mandate letter to the Minister of Finance, and I point out that it talks about this being an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law. He was going beyond in saying that the actions he takes not only have to be according to the letter of the law but they must bear up under the most intense public scrutiny. Earlier my colleague referred to a living document. He referred to the mandate letters. Well, the mandate letters certainly appear to be dead.

If the minister followed all the guidelines, as has been charged by all my colleagues, why, if that is so, was the minister charged on two separate occasions by the Ethics Commissioner? He was fined. Also, why did he take two years to disclose the ownership of a public villa in France and disclose a private numbered company held in Alberta? That seems incongruent to me.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the relevant part first. The member quoted from a mandate letter. We know that Stephen Harper never made mandate letters public. We now have a Prime Minister who has made mandate letters public because Canadians have a right to know what those priorities are for the government of the day. Further to that, within this legislation, it would obligate future prime ministers to do likewise, ensuring more transparency and accountability. That is the relevance to the legislation that we are debating today.

In regard to his assertions, it is all part of the whole character assassination of the Minister of Finance. If the opposition wants to continue down that line, that is up to them. We will continue to work hard serving Canada's middle class, those aspiring to be a part of it, and those individuals who are having a difficult time, by bringing in good sound public policy that has helped to generate literally hundreds of thousands of jobs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I seriously doubt that Canadians or Quebeckers are still listening to this debate, which is only fuelling the cynicism we often find in politics. However, we are currently debating a very important bill that deals with access to information. It is becoming more and more obvious that this government is all talk and no action.

For example, the new Bill C-58 introduces a new loophole that will allow any minister to decline to act on a request if he or she deems that it is too general, that it will seriously interfere with the government's activities, or that it was made in bad faith.

Here we have one of the dozens of statements of principle that are in this bill but have no real application.

My question is very simple: how does the government intend to guarantee that the rules are interpreted in the same way by all ministers?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not share the same concern that the member does. Ultimately those decisions are appealable to a commissioner who has more authority as a direct result of this very legislation, which, in all likelihood, the member across the way is going to be voting against.

If I were to ask the member a question based on the legislation we have before us, it would be related to why the NDP seem to be at odds in terms of the need for proactive disclosure. I do not understand that. I do not understand how it is that the NDP time and time again wants to resist something that ensures there is more accountability and transparency to Canadians from government policy. It continues to want to put up roadblocks.

The NDP talks about the issue of time allocation. At the end of the day, it would be nice to see legislation pass. At the end of the day, I suspect that the NDP would do whatever it could—and it does not take much—to prevent legislation from passing. Anyone with a little leadership and 12 people can virtually prevent any bill from passing. I am glad we recognize, at least on this side of the House, it is time that we make the changes necessary. This act has not been changed in a significant way for over three decades.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-58. Actually, that is what I was supposed to talk about, but the government has given me yet another opportunity to talk about its closed-mindedness and lack of transparency by moving another time allocation motion, this one for a bill that has to do with access to information. How ironic.

I am very glad to have the chance to speak after my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, who chose to talk about things that happened in the past. His eloquence and his legendary speaking skills in Parliament are well known to us all. There is a reason he has said more words in the House since the beginning of the session than any other member. He has been more vocal than anyone else during this Parliament as well as during the previous one. I believe that, more often than anyone else, he condemned the Conservative government's time allocation motions, which it did use to get its legislation through. The parliamentary secretary once had some choice words about democracy, the work of parliamentarians, and how outraged he was about time allocation motions.

This government was elected on a promise not to use time allocation motions, in order to allow for full debates. It was elected on a promise of basic openness and transparency. It promised it would be open at all times and would sometimes say no. The parliamentary secretary was the spokesperson of that election campaign.

What have we here today? In two years, this government has broken the previous government's record on using time allocation motions. It has used them on a number of very important files, including marijuana legalization, a subject that Canadians wanted to hear more about. Canadians represented by members on this side of the House wanted them to take the time to express their views on the matter. I am also convinced that many people represented by members across the way would have liked them to speak and fully explain their thoughts on Bill C-45 about marijuana legalization instead of repeating government talking points. Unfortunately, the government has used time allocation yet again, as it has done in so many other cases.

Speaking of flashbacks, the parliamentary secretary should also flash back to the eloquent speeches he gave in the last Parliament. They might inspire him to add to today's debate on time allocation motions. In his presentation, he also talked about the past Conservative government that saw the light on proactive disclosure. The Conservatives in government at the time adhered to that policy. Unfortunately, today's Bill C-58 takes us back to the dark ages. I am not the one saying this, it is the Information Commissioner. I will come back to her in a moment.

If the Liberals saw the light while they were in opposition, the light has unfortunately gotten steadily dimmer since they came to office, and we are heading for total darkness. The parliamentary secretary boasts that Bill C-58 will be open to periodic review. This morning I heard it called a “living document”. However, I wish the government had given life to something better, because right now, its living document seems doomed to a worthless existence.

We can already expect this bill to go nowhere in terms of delivering on the objectives and intentions that the Liberals announced during the last election campaign. It will not meet any of its objectives. Sadly, as far as those objectives go, this document is stillborn. Bill C-58 is not a living document. If it were, the government would have accepted the committee's recommendations. It would have agreed to amend its so-called living document from the outset in order to improve it and eliminate its dark and murky aspects by listening to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Unfortunately, all of the committee's recommendations were rejected.

That is not what I would call a living, open, and transparent document that can be improved upon. The government had already made up its mind, and it refused to amend and refine the bill into something that we on this side of the House could support.

The Liberals' approach is nothing new. Every time the Liberals introduce a bill on which we could have all worked together to move certain files forward for the good of Canada and Canadians, they find a way to sneak in some totally unacceptable legislation. They know very well that there will not be unanimity and the opposition will vote against the bill. They put things in that go too far or that do not make sense. Then they say that there are good things in the bill and they wonder why the opposition does not support it. It is because the Liberals overlook all the bad things. That is how the Liberals see things. They speak in general terms and have a massive public relations campaign, but when we start getting into the details, when we look beyond all the pretty words and pretty pictures, we find that there are many flaws. The quality and the resolution of the image are not always very good.

We have become accustomed to seeing a lot of shenanigans from the Liberal government. Since I was elected in 2015, I have seen that there are all sorts of ways of using the legislative process. The Liberals are trying to do things and they are especially trying to get out of the promises they made to Canadians in order to get elected in 2015. The Liberals realized that they could promise just about anything but that it is not so easy for a government to keep such promises.

I think the Liberals are going through a tough time right now because they made all sorts of promises in order to get elected. They promised Canadians just about anything, but now they are unable to keep those promises, so they have to find a way to get out of them. They decided to introduce a bill that does not accomplish what it is supposed to accomplish, thinking that would at least get people talking about the issue.

However, talking does not change anything. If all the government does is talk about an issue, if it does not change the laws, if it is not really held to account, and if it does not keep the promises that it made to Canadians, then Canadians end up with a government that does things that people did not elect it to do. That is what is happening today.

A number of things in Bill C-58 do indeed reflect Liberal promises. The Liberals made the following promise: “We will make government information more accessible.” Clearly, based on my reading of the bill and in light of what members of this cabinet have been doing, this government has no intention of increasing government openness and transparency. Instead, Bill C-58 actually undermines access to information in Canada. There is a great deal of opposition to Bill C-58.

This government claims to be open by default, and yet, the fiercest opposition to Bill C-58 is coming from the most loyal defenders of government transparency and access to information. What is wrong with this picture? We are talking about journalists, civil liberties groups, and yes, even the federal Information Commissioner. Indeed, the individual responsible for enforcing the legislation we are debating here today has criticized much of what is in Bill C-58.

In a report released in September, Ms. Legault said that Bill C-58 fails to deliver the fundamental reform the Access to Information Act needs. She said that the government's proposals actually introduce new barriers to the process Canadians must go through when requesting government documents. One would expect to hear that kind of thing from the opposition Conservative Party because our job is to criticize the government. However, that message is from the Information Commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing Bill C-58.

The report is entitled “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”. The title says it all. Here is what the report says:

In short, Bill C-58 fails to deliver.

The government promised the bill would ensure the act applies to the Prime Minister’s and ministers’ offices appropriately. It does not.

The government promised the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. It does not.

The government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not.

Rather than advancing access to information rights, Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.

It is the sad story of a government that promised things it had no intention of doing, or a government that improvises and was clearly not ready to govern. Two years after the election, I think that any political observer can confirm what I am saying. The government was not ready and, now, it is improvising and trying to look like it is keeping its promises, which it is entirely incapable of doing.

Let me get back to the Information Commissioner’s special report. The tables at the end of the report are impressive. They include a comparative summary, as well as information about improvements to Bill C-58, the current situation and other items. In short, we can see whether the various elements of the bill are positive, or whether they constitute a regression.

On the topic of making requests, we have a regression; declining to act on requests, regression; declining to act on requests for institutions, positive. Let us be fair, there are positive elements. The Prime Minister’s Office and mandate letters are neutral; ministers’ offices, regression; government institutions, regression; Parliament, regression; courts, regression.

With respect to fees, the process was to be streamlined and the fees abolished, but the changes still constitute a regression. On the topic of oversight model, we have a regression; seeking representations from the Privacy Commissioner in the course of an investigation: regression. That is a lot of regression, and this is not just my opinion. Mediation will be positive if added. The publication of orders will be positive if added.

The examination of solicitor-client privileged records is a positive. We are not being partisan: the impact of the purpose of the Access to Information Act is unknown. On the transition to a new oversight model, we have a regression; and the impact of the mandatory periodic review is unknown.

I can see why the impact of a mandatory periodic review is unknown. Since we began considering Bill C-58, several good suggestions have been made to improve it. The government did not take any of these suggestions into account. I understand why the commissioner has certain questions concerning the purpose of the mandatory periodic review.

The report ends on a negative note. The changes to Info Source, or the requirement institutions have to annually publish certain classes of information, constitute a regression, and lastly, on the topic of institutions’ annual reports on the administration of the Access to Information Act, we have yet another regression.

We are not the ones saying this. It is in the report of the Information Commissioner of Canada, whose title speaks volumes: “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”. This document made recommendations to the government for improving Bill C-58 so that it would meet the openness and transparency needs not of the official opposition, the NDP, the Bloc québécois, the Green Party, independent members of Parliament or Liberal backbenchers, but of Canadians.

Unfortunately, “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency” is the report card for Bill C-58. That is why the Liberal government had to put forward a time allocation motion today, to silence the hon. members of every opposition party here in the House. It does not want us to spend time repeating that the Information Commissioner said that it was way off the mark.

Mr. Speaker, if you knew everything that people were saying and all the articles that were being written about Bill C-58, you would also have a hard time understanding the government's intention. According to the cofounder of Democracy Watch, the bill constitutes a regression in that it allows government officials to decline requests for information if they believe that the request is frivolous or in bad faith.

Let us put ourselves in the shoes of a member of cabinet who is being asked questions about his villa in France and who decides that the request is frivolous or made in bad faith, since where he spends his vacation is no business of Canadians. This person would refuse to answer the questions. That is what Democracy Watch is denouncing.

Also, well-known defender of Canadian democracy Mr. Conacher says that public servants should not have this power, because they will likely use it as a new loophole to decline giving the public the information to which it is entitled. That is exactly what I have been saying since the beginning.

Bill C-58 also imposes new obligations on people requesting information. The act currently requires government institutions to make every reasonable effort to assist a person making a request, regardless of the information requested. However, under the proposed legislation, people requesting information will have to provide more specific information about the exact type of document they are looking for, the period in question and the exact subject.

In other words, if I want to know more about the elimination of a tax credit for diabetics and I do not give the exact name of the tax credit and the form, the people across the aisle may decline to give me the information. Still, as far as I know, Canadians have the right to know why the government eliminated the tax credits for diabetics. When a major change affects the lives of those who are the most vulnerable, Canadians have the right to know why the change was made and why the minister did not inform the opposition and all Canadians. I think that is logical.

It is as if the government wanted to find more ways of hiding the truth from Canadians. I do not dare say it, but this bill looks like another attempt at a cover-up on the part of the government, and yet, all it is doing is revealing to Canadians just how unprepared it was to govern. That is our assessment of Bill C-58.

It is probably for that reason that the government does not want to have to answer questions about tax reform, the Morneau affair, Netflix taxes, the small deficits they promised, NAFTA, China, home mail delivery, and the Prime Minister's vacation on a private island, which was talked about a lot. It is probably the reason why Bill C-58 is before us today and why we are subject to time allocation.

The promise of openness and transparency is a failed public relations exercise, and I would remind members that, according to the Information Commissioner, the government has failed to meet its goal to be transparent.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, during the 2015 campaign, I heard from many people about the previous government, the concern about the lack of openness, the lack of transparency and the direction to dismantle and destroy a scientific library in my riding.

We are the government of openness and transparency. I hear that often in my riding, and nationally. People are pleased with the access to information they can receive. Yes, they want greater access, but they also want more efficiency, which Bill C-58 would help to master.

Does the member support proactive disclosure?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it makes me laugh when they repeat the same talking points over and over again.

The government claims to be open and transparent, and it claims to be open by default. During oral question period, we ask questions about the financial situation of the Minister of Finance, who is the most influential minister and should be the most important minister, the one fully trusted by all Canadians. The government refuses to answer the questions asked by the opposition and by Canadians every time. It makes me laugh when they constantly repeat a broken promise.

When she asked her question, my colleague said that the government came to power by promising an open and transparent approach. I believe she said this in good faith. Unfortunately, after being in power for two years, this government has shown us that it is incapable of keeping its commitment to be open and transparent.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I believe that, like me, he has no problem with proactive disclosure. In my opinion, the problem is that the Liberals are confusing proactive disclosure and access to information. They are two different things. The problem with this bill is that there will be no transparency. We will not have access to information from the Prime Minister’s Office or the ministers’ offices, and I am convinced that that is not what the people I represent want. They want true transparency.

Does my colleague agree with me that the Liberals are confusing proactive disclosure and access to information?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the Liberals are confusing election promises and government action.

Unfortunately, in their confusion, they are forgetting to fulfill their election promises. Therefore, I think that shows that the government is incapable of being proactive with respect to the disclosure of the concrete actions it takes as a government.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his comments.

I agree fully with his observation that the Liberal government promised much. It promised transparency, accountability, but did not deliver it, spectactularly. The Liberals claim they consulted widely and they did, but they did not listen.

The Liberals characterize Bill C-58 as living legislation. Unfortunately it is not quite dead but it should be; it is on life support. We know that because of the Liberal majority and the heavy-handed imposition of time allocation, now cutting short debate, which should be much longer, the bill will pass, will become law, and will take Canadians backward in their legitimate right to know how they are governed, their access to information.

Does my colleague share my great and deep disappointment that this vitally important debate has been cut so short?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is incomprehensible, unacceptable and, at the same time, ironic that the government is trying to cut short discussions on Bill C-58 while claiming that it is a living document.

I sincerely cannot understand the government’s attitude toward Bill C-58, a bill on openness, transparency, and the desire to be open by default. Today we see that “open by default” is once again just a point of debate, a way for the government to hide its inability to fulfill all the promises it made to Canadians with respect to openness and transparency.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly seeing Canadians dog-pile on this bill as being regressive. Yesterday, indigenous leaders who held a press conference on the Hill were slamming this as regressive. We are seeing that all across the country.

The hon. member has been sitting in this House, as I have. This is the government again that ran on openness and transparency. However, nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen a display in question period. In my riding, it is jokingly called “non-answer period”.

If we cannot have enough confidence in the government to answer questions in this House, how will we have enough confidence in their ability to answer questions of Canadians through this bill?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that this is a missed opportunity. The title of the Information Commissioner’s report is “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”. It speaks volumes.

In fact, I think that the government is missing a good opportunity to act openly and transparently, by not answering the official opposition’s questions during question period.

I do not know how many times I have heard them say, “We will help the middle class and those working hard to join it”, or “We want a good agreement, not just any agreement”. For the government, it is as if this constant repetition were more important than reality and the answers we are waiting for on this side of the House.

At some point, Canadians will tire of the prepackaged comments they are hearing from government ministers. What Canadians want are answers. Not only do the Liberals not want to provide answers here in the House but, with Bill C-58, they are making it even more difficult for Canadians to get real answers from the government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition may choose to ask a question 25 times. When I say 25 that is conservative, in the real sense of the word. A question can be asked many times, but if the answer does not change, it does not mean that the answer is not good. It could imply that the question is not good or that the person did not understand the answer.

That is a little off topic. The relevance of the bill is that the bill talks about ensuring more transparency and accountability. We cited the example of the ministers' mandate letters.

I am wondering if my colleague across the way would acknowledge how nice it would have been if the former prime minister had done what this Prime Minister did to make public the mandate letters given to ministers. It helps Canadians have a better understanding of the government's agenda, in detail, from the different departments.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to respond to the many questions and insinuations that my colleague raised in order.

With regard to the fact that we ask the same question over and over again, when we do not get any answers we try asking the question in different ways, using different words, in the hopes of getting an answer. At least we ask the question in different ways. The Liberals always answer using the same words, the same rhetoric, and the same hollow phrases. As long as they continue doing that, we will continue to ask questions, but we will at least try to change the wording so that it is not always the same.

With regard to the mandate letters, it is all well and good to tell people that the mandate letters will be made public. However, we must not forget that the Prime Minister knew when he wrote those letters that they would be made public. Are they really mandate letters or just another public relations exercise? Fortunately, we can read the mandate letters every day and see how utterly incapable the ministers are of following through on them.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Richmond—Arthabaska.

As we have heard many times today, again, the legislation before us, Bill C-58, which the Liberal government is steamrolling to pass through the heavy-handed imposition once again of the legislative guillotine of time allocation, has been characterized in many ways.

The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association dismissed the so-called proactive disclosure provisions as a bizarre sleight of hand.

Democracy Watch calls Bill C-58 a step backward.

The Canadian Association of Journalists ridiculed the President of the Treasury Board for “outstanding achievement in government secrecy” and conferred on the Liberals a “code of silence” award.

La Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec said that rather than the promised greater openness from this Liberal government it was a false alarm, too good to be true.

The Centre for Free Expression at Ryerson University says Bill C-58 is little more than a cosmetic touch-up.

The Algonquin Nation Secretariat, on behalf of the National Claims Research Directors, rejected Bill C-58 as it was originally written for installing “significant new barriers for First Nations” trying to access historic information for their land claims. They have a right to access that information.

From experts on open government principles across the country there has been condemnation of the parts of Bill C-58 that allow the government to deny access to documents the government claims contain confidential cabinet information, which the experts characterize still today as the deepest black hole in Canada's access to information system.

As well, there are any number of other negative characterizations of the flawed legislation before us, but the most telling comes from the Information Commissioner herself.

After the Liberal majority ignored the unanimously negative votes from this side of the House at second reading by Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc, and the Green Party, Commissioner Legault sent her own strongly worded message to the government, to members of the House, and to all Canadians. It was titled “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency—Recommendations to improve Bill C-58”. It is relevant to read just a few of the commissioner's remarks into the record.

Commissioner Legault reminded us that, “The Liberal government was elected on a platform of openness and transparency... promising to renew Canadians' trust in their government....to lead a review of the outdated Access to Information Act to enhance the openness of government.” Commissioner Legault concluded, “In short, Bill C-58 fails to deliver.”

She said the government promised the bill would ensure the act applies to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices appropriately. “It does not”, she said, with emphasis.

She said the government promised the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. Again, with emphasis, she said, “It does not”.

She said the government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner, to empower her, to order the release of government information. Again she said clearly, “It does not”.

The commissioner summed up her assessment of Bill C-58 with telling finality, “Rather than advancing access to information rights, Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.”

She then, across some 45 pages of detailed criticism, marked the government's proposed legislation section by section, paragraph by paragraph, as a disappointed high school teacher might mark an under-fulfilling student. There are 12 red-line failures, regressive elements, in the commissioner's assessment, a couple of neutrals and a couple of positives.

When the commissioner came before our committee, she reiterated her conclusion that Bill C-58 is overwhelmingly a regressive piece of legislation that diminishes Canadians' right to know.

She spoke again to the fact that Bill C-58 does not truly empower her to order the disclosure of information while, at the same time, it adds burdensome stages to the investigation process.

The Information Commissioner effectively said that should the government fail to accept her top 28 recommended amendments, the status quo, what we have now as access to information legislation, as imperfect as it may be, would be preferable to Bill C-58. Her most telling example of the glaring flaws of Bill C-58 was to explain to our committee that if passed as originally tabled, it would have blocked the journalistic requests that exposed the notorious sponsorship scandal.

Now, this example gave the Liberal government pause and moved the Liberals to retreat somewhat. Therefore, one of the few improvements or amendments accepted by the government for the current form of the bill before us was the removal of what the commissioner termed “massive regression” in terms of excessively specific criteria in any access to information request.

This removal is to be welcomed, but it seems some government departments and individual officials are nonetheless already implementing its stringent provisions. The commissioner revealed in her testimony before committee that she had a newly documented case where one institution was applying criteria in Bill C-58, which is not law, and thanks to the government retreat in this area will not be in the law. However, at least one institution is already using those now deleted criteria to deny legitimate requests for information. Therefore, I think that any reasonable person has to wonder how officials in departments and agencies across government will respect and follow the letter of the law in this very slightly amended but still deeply flawed piece of legislation.

The government has not only ignored and rejected the wise advice of the Information Commissioner, journalists, stakeholders, human rights advocates, and ordinary citizens who would like to see meaningful improvements to access to information, but the current Liberal government has also ignored almost all of the recommendations made by the Liberal-dominated committee of the House that carried out an exhaustive study of the law a year ago before Bill C-58 was written and tabled.

Members probably already noted that I have not addressed the false advertising of the Liberals' 2015 election promises on reform to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. Members may recall the then leader of the third party of the House making promises across a spectrum of tax cuts, modest deficits, electoral reform, restoration of home mail delivery, the United Nations peacekeeping, revenue-neutral carbon prices, just to name a few. The Liberal leader also said “...we're going to have to embark on a completely different style of government”. He then added an interesting metaphor when he promised, “A government that both accepts its responsibilities to be open and transparent, but also a population that doesn't mind lifting the veil to see how sausages are made”.

I am not sure whether members can see the Prime Minister or the President of the Treasury Board as sausage makers, but if they do, then they must truly see Bill C-58 as “the wurst”. This is not a great pun, but I think it appropriate in this situation.

The President of the Treasury Board, a loquacious and good-humoured individual, asked us when he appeared before committee to recognize the government's daring in attempting the first meaningful updating of the Access to Information Act in 34 years. He had spoken abroad at the summit of Open Government Partnership extolling the virtues of the Liberal government's commitment. However, in the face of overwhelming criticism of the deeply flawed Bill C-58, the minister has rejected virtually all of the recommended improvements and amendments from our committee, from the commissioner, and from Canadians. He effectively said not to worry, be happy, and that this aromatic sausage may not be perfect, but he will look at it again in a year and perhaps consider improvements. He said, “Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good”. However, as I said earlier today, there is very little good in Bill C-58.

We recognize on this side of the House that Bill C-58 is a classically regressive piece of legislation that is about to be steamrollered into law by the Liberal majority. Shame on Liberal backbenchers. As I have said, they are using the legislative guillotine of time allocation, cutting short debate on an issue that is at the heart of the our democracy, which is the right of Canadians to know how they are governed.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by the comments of my friend from Thornhill. He is always a great presenter, although I thought he was reaching for the old joke about the law being like sausage; if we saw how it was made, we would never eat it.

In this case, we are trying as hard as we can to allow the public to see how the law is made. There are, of course, varying opinions, as expressed by the member for Thornhill, and complaints about the specifics of the law. I would ask my friend across the way what the public perception would be of the Prime Minister when he stood up in a school gymnasium in Kamloops filled with several hundred people to respond to their questions in a town hall. Some of those questions were very critical of the government. Comparing that to the previous government, would my friend say that, all in all, the public sees our government as attempting to be open and reaching out to people by the actions of our Prime Minister?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend for his explanation of the origins of that remark, when the Prime Minister promised to lift the veil on how Liberal sausages are made. Indeed, to go back to his explanation, we have seen that the sausages the Liberals make have some very unhealthy and unappealing contents.

The Prime Minister presents well. My colleague is correct about that, but this is yet another piece of legislation that falls far short of what Canadians are looking for. The government asks why the opposition is opposing this bill. We listen to Canadians, journalists, lawyers, human rights advocates, ordinary citizens, and indigenous people to try to ensure that the access to information system will at least be as rigorous as it is today, however imperfect the current laws are. We also listened to the Information Commissioner herself, who says this is a highly regressive piece of legislation.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to talk about the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which were essentially all rejected by the Liberal government.

Could my colleague tell me why he thinks that the Liberal government once again rejected all the suggestions the opposition made to improve Bill C-58, which is supposedly a living document?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must again say that this living document, which is on life support, certainly in the court of public opinion, will be imposed on Canadians by the Liberal majority.

I want to speak positively about the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, because it is a productive committee. Members work well together. A year ago, before this bad law was written, the committee, with a Liberal majority and chaired by a Conservative, voted unanimously to advise the government on what should be in Bill C-58. Those suggestions were completely ignored. When the bill, under attack from all quarters, went to committee recently and all of the recommended amendments by the NDP were rejected, we Conservatives saw the government's mood and did not submit any proposed amendments because we believed, and still believe, that Bill C-58 is beyond redemption, though at least one member of the Liberal committee voted for changes. The Liberal numbers on that committee meant that the direction of the PMO prevailed and all but a very few of those amendments were accepted by the government.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before explaining why I am so pleased to speak in the House to Bill C-58 on reforming the Access to Information Act, I will read a quote to put things into context:

When I was getting ready to appear [before the committee], I came back to the request made by journalist Daniel Leblanc [from TheGlobe and Mail], the request that uncovered the sponsorship scandal. That request would not have met the requirements [of the bill, which] would be a major setback [for information rights].

That person is referring to the bill we are talking about today, the one that the Liberals want to pass. Who said that? It was not an opposition MP, it was Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner of Canada.

That is why the bill to amend the Access to Information Act, 1993 is so highly anticipated. As hon. members know, that legislation affects anyone wanting to obtain information from federal government institutions.

Ever since the Access to Information Act reform was unveiled there has been no end to the criticism and disappointment. First, this reform does not keep the Liberals' promise to extend the legislation to ministers' offices, or to the Prime Minister's office. That is the first broken promise.

Second, the government will now be able to decline any access to information request if it believes the request is vexatious, is made in bad faith, or is otherwise an abuse of the right to make a request for access to information. In other words, the government is leaving itself enough leeway to turn down any request that could be harmful or embarrassing to it. God knows there are plenty of files that meet that description.

Third, we know there is currently a major backlog of access to information requests. Sadly, this bill does nothing to tackle the backlog, which has already reached unacceptable levels and serves to further impede access to information.

Fourth, the government promised that the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts, but as it turns out, that will not be so.

Fifth, the government promised that the bill would create an oversight model that would give the Information Commissioner the power to order the release of government information. However, needless to say, this bill contains no such reforms.

According to the Information Commissioner, whom I quoted at the beginning, if this bill had been in force in 1999, it would have prevented journalists from accessing the information that made it possible for them to uncover the Liberal sponsorship scandal, better known in some circles as the Gomery commission.

Ms. Legault has voiced several criticisms regarding Bill C-58. Basically, no one is satisfied. Everyone is disappointed in this version of the bill.

Katie Gibbs, executive director of the Evidence for Democracy group, has said that by ruling out the possibility of obtaining information from ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office, the Liberal government is breaking its promise. She also argued that the government is breaking its campaign promise to establish a government that is open by default. She believes the possibility to arbitrarily refuse access to information requests on an undefined basis jeopardizes government transparency and openness.

The Liberals are going to great lengths to protect the Prime Minister.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, believes that the bill represents a step backwards by allowing government officials to deny access to information requests if they think the request is frivolous or made in bad faith. Mr. Conacher has also indicated that public servants should not have this authority because they will likely use it as a new loophole to deny the public the information it has a right to know. We saw this with the minister of the Canada Revenue Agency, especially in recent weeks.

Stéphane Giroux, president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec—these are not the mean, old Conservatives the Liberals make us out to be; Robert Marleau, former information commissioner from 2007 to 2009; the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association; some first nations groups who noted that some provisions in the bill would make it harder for them to get access to justice and information, all these people oppose the bill. That is a lot of people; they are starting to add up.

This all means that not only the members of the opposition, but also civil liberties groups, journalists, and the Information Commissioner, who is neutral, all oppose the bill and prefer the status quo. That says something when we prefer the status quo, with its many flaws, rather than this Liberal reform presented today. We understand that there is work to do to improve the situation. All these people share a common belief that Bill C-58 does not implement any of the requested reforms to the Access to Information Act, and furthermore, that it introduces new obstacles to the process that Canadians will have to follow to make legitimate requests for government documents. After this, we still wonder why the population is so cynical about politicians.

The reform therefore does nothing to address the enormous shortcomings of the act, as the Liberals promised during the election campaign. In fact, it is a step backward. Governments in power, regardless of the party, constantly introduce bills to improve the situation. As I was saying earlier, it is unbelievable that so many people see only regression in a bill that should improve the situation.

This is also double talk: the Liberals say that they are open and transparent, but they missed a great opportunity to prove it. They must be totally disconnected to believe that Canadians will not see through them, particularly when we consider the scandals that have emerged every day for two years now.

As the reform currently stands, the government will be able to choose which information it will make public and protect the information it wants to hide from Canadians. It will be free to decline requests for access to information for obscure and arbitrary reasons.

My colleagues can rest assured that no information that could be even minimally embarrassing will be disclosed. We know how the Liberals work. By choosing to disclose only what makes them look good—and we know how much our Prime Minister likes to look good, no need to mention the selfies—I think that everyone knows exactly what the Prime Minister is doing: the Liberals are now turning the Access to Information Act into a new communications strategy. What we are talking about is serious.

This act is one of the very few tools that citizens, journalists, and members of all official opposition parties, who have the responsibility to monitor this government to prevent the types of breach of trust we are seeing today, have to exercise their right to information and do their jobs properly. Make no mistake, the Liberal government is centralizing power around the Prime Minister and his cronies, who control even the various ministers’ offices, despite what it is letting on with its nice words and pretty pictures, while publicly condemning such acts.

Lastly, when we look at the bill as a whole, what we take away is “do what I say, not what I do”. It is a sad state of affairs.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I think the French title of the Information Commissioner's report had something to do with a missed target.

I have never before seen a watchdog of Parliament, an officer of Parliament, hold up government legislation, compare it to the government's promises and mandate letters, and so thoroughly eviscerate that legislation, as in the case of Bill C-58.

We heard in testimony from the commissioner that her department and her office already were receiving complaints about government agencies employing the tactics imagined in Bill C-58, which has not even passed Parliament yet. Government agencies are denying access to information requests from Canadians based on these terrible articles in the bill, which would allow a government agency to deem a request from a Canadian as being vexatious or too problematic for the agency.

When it come to information, some things Canadians want from the government may seem vexatious to the government but are important to Canadians, like missing and murdered aboriginal women, like the number of sexual assaults that go unreported to the RCMP in Canada, like the sponsorship scandal, and like the Afghan detainee situation. All of those came to light only because Canadians, journalists, and NGOs were able to gain access that information from governments that did not want to give them.

My question for my friend is this. If Bill C-58 already is being applied, denying Canadians access to the information to which they are legally entitled, what kind of future can we imagine for first nations groups, environment groups, and journalists, those people who simply are trying to get information from the government to which they are legally entitled?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for asking a relevant question that ties into the statements made by everyone I quoted in my speech. Opposition members are not the only ones crying foul. When people listen to the rhetoric in this place, they may get the sense that we are here just to oppose the government no matter what it says. In this case, as my colleague astutely pointed out, officers of Parliament are the ones saying these things, not us. They are the ones who are responsible for keeping us in line because we are all human and we can all make mistakes. They are saying the same thing as journalists and opposition party members, who want to do a good job of representing their citizens.

Members on this side of the House were elected by the people, too. The people decided to give the Liberals a chance to govern, but they also elected us to keep a close eye on the Liberals. As such, I believe we have the same rights as them. If I submit an access to information request, I, like any journalist, opposition member, or citizen frustrated by what has been going on these past two years, should have the privilege of getting the information requested. Bill C-58 does just the opposite. This government is protecting itself by implementing a new communications management system.

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

Mr. Speaker, it has been mesmerizing to hear my colleague opposite, and even the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, speak as though the committee did not work on this bill, as if the committee did not pass more than 12 amendments.

For example, one amendment prevents the department from declining to act on a request just because the request failed to state the specific subject matter, type of record, or period. One of the proposed amendments would give the commissioner power of approval before a department declines to act on a request.

Why then is the opposition member implying that the amendments supported by his own colleagues were not accepted?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the question from my colleague opposite. She is a government member who is going to vote in favour of this bill, which will deprive journalists, citizens, and parliamentarians of their right to access information.

I would like her to tell me if she agrees with Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, who called this bill regressive. Does she agree with Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence for Democracy, who also thinks it is a step back? Does she agree with Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, who feels the same way? The same goes for indigenous groups and the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. Are all of these people and groups off base?

In spite of these independent groups saying no to this bill, is my Liberal colleague opposite going to try to ram it down our throats and Canadians' throats while the Prime Minister goes around taking selfies to lull the public?

We are saying no. We will be voting against this bill because it constitutes a regression on access to information.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak to Bill C-58, and to perhaps set the record straight with respect to some of the remarks of my colleagues opposite. They love to quote criticisms of the bill that took place before the committee study, before amendments were made to address those very issues, and before the bill was even further strengthened to build on the historic improvement to access to information.

Our government is firmly committed to being open and transparent. That is the kind of government Canadians expect and deserve. These reforms were made with that in mind.

We remain committed to upholding this principle, which was first applied in the 1983 Access to Information Act.

Now, 34 years later, our proposed reforms advance the original intent of the act in a way that reflects today's technologies, policies, and legislation, and keeps this an evergreen process as well.

I am proud our government is the government to finally update this act. This is in contrast to the government of the members opposite, the Conservatives, who promised to reform this act in their election platform, spent 10 years in government, and failed to do a thing.

I experienced the former government's control tactics around access to information first-hand as an opposition member of Parliament. I filed an access to information request to find out more about the process for building Canada's pavilion for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. The pavilion was to be built in Vancouver, and there were questions about it in the media. Lo and behold, when I received the response from the government, every line in the document had been blacked out. There was not a scrap of information. I would contend that Canada's Olympic pavilion was hardly a national security issue that had to be protected.

That is what the Conservative government of the day was doing instead of fixing the Access to Information Act. Perhaps it was also too busy becoming the first government in not just the history of Canada but the history of the Commonwealth to be found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to provide information to Parliament.

Let us not forget the extent to which the New Democrats were hesitant to join the trend when the Liberal MPs became the first party to begin a practice of proactive disclosure of expenses. They needed to be dragged along with that. However, I digress.

Our government is acting. We are following through on our election promise to reform the Access to Information Act.

Our efforts started over a year ago. In May 2016, we issued a directive that enshrined the idea of a government that is “open by default”.

Open by default means having a culture across government in which data and information are increasingly released as a matter of course, unless there are specific reasons not to do so.

Now, with the amendments proposed in Bill C-58, we are taking the next step.

Bill C-58 would advance the Access to Information Act in some key areas. It would give the Information Commissioner the power to order government to release records. She has been asking exactly for that. That is a significant increase in the power of the commissioner. No longer is the office of the commissioner simply an ombudsperson. It would now have the power to compel government to release records.

The bill would put the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices inside the act for the very first time, as promised, through legislative requirements for proactive disclosure. It would also legislate proactive disclosure for administrative bodies that supported the courts, Parliament, and other government institutions. This dramatically broadens the reach of the Access to Information Act.

The bill also mandates five-year reviews of the act. Therefore, it is an evergreen process of improvement. What is more is that it would require that departments regularly review the information being requested under the act.

This will help us understand and increase the kinds of information that could be and should be proactively published.

We are also developing a guide to provide requesters with clear explanations for exemptions and exclusions. We are investing in tools to make processing information requests more timely and efficient. We are allowing federal institutions with the same minister to share request processing services for greater efficiency. We are also increasing government training to get common and consistent interpretation and application of ATI rules.

We are moving to help government institutions weed out bad faith requests that put significant strain on the system.

By tying up government resources, such vexatious requests can interfere with an institution's ability to do its other work and respond to other requests. However, let me be clear. We have heard the concerns expressed about how we must safeguard against abuse of this proposed measure. In particular, we have heard the concerns raised by indigenous groups regarding land claims.

As the President of the Treasury Board said during second reading debate, “A large or broad request, or one that causes government discomfort, does not, of itself, represent bad faith on the part of the requester.” Broad requests, particularly historical records to substantiate indigenous claims, are legitimate and consistent with the spirit of the act.

However, it was not enough for our government to clearly state our intentions in the House of Commons. Therefore, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics further strengthened Bill C-58 by amending the bill to make it explicit that no department could refuse a request simply because the subject, type of record or date of record was not specified.

The bill was also amended to give the Information Commissioner veto power in advance over whether a department could reject a request. The committee also passed an amendment that would give the Information Commissioner the power to publish the results of their investigations and orders, giving further leverage to the commissioner's new powers, as was intended by the President of the Treasury Board and requested by the commissioner. Our government firmly supports these amendments.

In addition to the government's duty to assist, which is a fundamental obligation built into the Access to Information Act, our government is fully committed to fulfilling Canada's fiduciary obligation to assist first nations in furthering their land claims.

After 34 years, Canada's ATI system needs updating, and this will be a work in progress.

I am disappointed that the members opposite in both the Conservative Party and the NDP have been playing politics with this very important bill. They have been raising issues that were already addressed at committee, where amendments were passed to put to rest the concerns that were raised.

The Conservatives, who never did anything for 10 years even though they solemnly promised in their platform to update access to information, are acting as though this is a step backward. In fact, it is a step in forward in many respects. It would broaden the scope of the act, respect the commissioner's request to have additional powers to determine if a department could refuse to fulfill an access to information request. It also includes order-making power to ensure the order is published and publicly available to review.

A great number of key steps have been taken to advance the openness and transparency to the Canadian public with respect to information to which they should and will have access.

Members opposite are pretending that no amendments have been made, that the commissioner's report is still valid when it was written before the amendments to respond to her concerns were debated and voted on by committee members, including the New Democratic Party members and Conservative members, and wholly supported by the Liberal President of the Treasury Board and Liberal members. The fact that those are being ignored, that those parties are aiming to confuse and confound the public debate, and mislead members of the public listening to their speeches and questions and answers is very discouraging and disappointing. This is one of those kinds of policy measures that everyone agreed needed to be improved. That is exactly what we are doing, for the first time in 34 years.

To try to confuse the public into thinking that this is a step back, when it is a major leap forward, is doing a disservice to the public. It is providing inaccurate information to the public. It is raising unnecessary fears around individual access to information and around indigenous people's access to information in pursuit of potential land claims. These things have been addressed. We have a great deal of respect for the importance of reconciliation with indigenous peoples right across this country, and one part of that is to support and aid individuals and groups that are seeking access to information to pursue the reconciliation, partnership, and co-operation our government is so committed to.

Therefore, I would request that the members opposite stick to the facts, reflect what happened in committee in terms of the amendments that were made, and reflect the ways in which the commissioner's requests and others were actually built into those amendments by committee. Let us have a debate on the merits of this policy using the actual up-to-date, factual information. That would be a public service on the part of members opposite.

As I said at the start of my speech, I am very proud that it is our Liberal government that is finally following through and giving the Access to Information Act some much-needed reform. There would be a review just one year after the coming into force of this bill so that we would be able to have continuous quality improvement of this very important piece of legislation. This very important aspect of our public policy, whereby reviews are done and improvements are made in a timely way, is built into our new act. We are looking forward to continuing our work to help make government more open, transparent, and accountable.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I heard the member say was that the Conservatives had been forced into making major changes, because they were found in contempt. I have a couple of points. Anyone who was here understood the procedure that had taken place. It was presented to all the committees. We were in a minority government, and basically, the opposition members simply said that they thought the Conservatives were in contempt, so they were going to send it back to the House to have a discussion. Of course, it had to wait two years until they were ready to defeat the minority government. If members recall, the Canadian public was the final arbiter on the shenanigans taking place at that time.

More to the point, the member and many people seem to have forgotten the types of things the Conservatives did, including better public access to information, next-generation open data, the modernization of the Access to Information Act, the open-government licence, and all the other things that were done. Yes, they are building upon all the CPC initiatives. Unfortunately, they are going back and doing the draconian thing by talking about what might happen in ministers' offices and so on, but we are not 100% sure if that is ever going to come out to the public.

I wonder if the member has any comments about those particular items.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not clear on what the member considers to be draconian about a law, Bill C-58, that would broaden access to information across the Prime Minister's Office, ministers' offices, and many other offices. What is draconian about giving order-making power to the commissioner, enabling the commissioner to determine whether a request can actually be blocked by a department?

I will just add that the previous government had ministers countermanding the provision of information by a department and actually taking the political power themselves to block access to information requests. It was shocking at the time. The sanctimonious comments I hear on the other side of the House are quite surprising, given that record.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is highly offensive for the Liberals to keep saying that we are being partisan on this issue, that we are not taking a position or that we are against them, and that we do not want to debate. In committee, we proposed 20 amendments related to the Information Commissioner's recommendations and the Liberals rejected them all. It is outrageous that the Liberals are accusing us of being partisan when we are trying to improve a bill on access to information. The Liberals are the ones who are not open to any suggestions.

The member said that the Liberals consulted the Information Commissioner, but the commissioner herself said in the title of her report that the government has failed to strike the right balance for transparency. The report states, and I quote:

...Bill C-58 fails to deliver. The government promised the bill would ensure the act applies to the Prime Minister’s and ministers’ offices appropriately. It does not....The government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not....Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.

Could my colleague comment on that?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are the first government in 30 years to modernize the Access to Information Act. We know that the NDP does not like proactive disclosure, but we do, which is why we included it in this bill. I would remind my colleague that the committee adopted a dozen or so amendments to strengthen and clarify our government's intention to improve and reform our access to information system, amendments that were surely supported by the NDP members. We are proud of this improvement to our bill and the joint efforts of the committee members. This helped us improve the bill.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the parliamentary secretary heard the question that was just offered to her.

The Liberals wrote a bad bill. They did not consult with first nations, they did not consult with non-profit groups, and they did not consult with media groups, all of which use access to information. They did not consult with the Information Commissioner, who had to release a report that said things such as that the government promised to have ministers' offices covered by the Access to Information Act. This piece of legislation does not do that.

One by one, the Information Commissioner had to hold up the Liberal promise then hold up the reality of the bill. The Information Commissioner, who I trust a lot more than I do the President of the Treasury Board or the Liberal government, said that this would make things worse.

We then had to amend the bill dramatically, even though the Liberals did not consult with anyone. They respect first nations, and they believe in consultation, except they do not do it. They amended the bill and did technical amendments, rejecting every single amendment that came from the NDP, whose recommendations were based on the testimony of indigenous groups, the Information Commissioner, environmental organizations, and those who use the act. The Liberals said that they amended it and it was perfect now.

I will take one issue my friend completely misspoke about earlier. She said that there would now be order-making power in the bill. We asked the Information Commissioner about the order-making power to demand documents from government. She said that this might actually make things worse, because the so-called order-making power they would institute would make the whole process of dragging information from the government even longer than it is right now. It would not be true order-making power, as was promised by the Liberals in the campaign. The Prime Minister's Office would not fall under the Access to Information Act, as was promised by the Liberals in the campaign.

They can drink as much Kool-Aid as they want over there, but turning this bad piece of legislation into a good one does not come by simply saying that they have technically amended the bill and now it is much better. It is not. They know it is not. I am shocked that my friend seems to just repeat the party line and thinks that it somehow makes reality other than what it is.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us talk about reality. The reality is that the commissioner asked for order-making power and would be provided order-making power. In the amendments, that order-making power was strengthened in ways the commissioner had indicated would make it even more effective.

Let us talk about reality with respect to the Prime Minister's office and the minister's offices. For the first time ever, the act would apply to the ministers' offices and the PMO. This would lead to better public understanding of government decision-making, fostering more participation and public trust in government. That is advancement.

For the first time ever, the act would apply to 240 federal entities, from the courts to the ports. That is advancement.

This is not just a one-off exercise. It is an evergreen, ongoing rejuvenation. The member opposite, from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, continues to quote comments made before a committee process that vastly improved the bill, with the cooperation of all parties. I would ask him to update his narrative and reflect Bill C-58 as it is today in this House.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Victoria.

“All-party co-operation” is what the Liberals call it. This is what happens to this bad piece of legislation, which the Information Commissioner said, unless it was fundamentally amended would be a regression in terms of access to information. That is what she said, so we tried to fundamentally amend it. Based upon what? It was not about the notions we came into the meetings with. It was from the testimony that we heard at the committee from the Information Commissioner, who is the lead on access to information in this country. It was from first nations groups, who are seeking settlement with the government over land treaties, residential school inquiries, with the government, by the way, still in court with first nations. It might be shocking, but the Liberal government is taking first nation kids to court, taking the generations that followed to court, to deny them access to documents that happened in residential schools. My friend can walk away from the conversation, but the reality will follow her right out of Parliament and into her home constituency in Vancouver.

I imagine that most of my Liberal colleagues came in with good intentions, wanting to open up government, wanting to make information more available to Canadians, because it is their information. They paid for it. When the Department of National Defence does something, when Indigenous Affairs does something, and they file some documents on it, the documents do not belong to the Government of Canada, they belong to the people of Canada. That is who paid for it, and that is what is required under law. However, there are tricks around providing that information.

My friend from the Liberals just said that we should celebrate because access to information now applies to the Prime Minister's Office and the minister's office. That, on the surface, would seem like a really good idea, and that is what the Liberals promised, but what is the reality? Can people write an access to information request to the Prime Minister's Office after Bill C-58 becomes law? No, they cannot. What will happen is that the Prime Minister's Office will self-disclose the information, such as mandate letters. They are going to make mandate letters mandatorily disclosed to Canadians. Well, let the angels sing on high and pop the champagne corks. Big deal. They break half of the promises in their mandate letters anyway, so making them public means exactly what? It is a mandate letter. We wanted access to how the Prime Minister's Office operates. That is what the current Prime Minister promised when he was not Prime Minister.

Now that he is Prime Minister, he does not want that access to information to apply to him. He wants it to apply to somebody else at some other time. We went through this. The Assembly of First Nations is meeting today, and they have an emergency resolution on the floor from the chiefs across this country to reject this piece of legislation. The Liberals love the notion and the symbolism and the gestures toward first nation people. Hand on heart, they say that no relationship is more important to them. Then, we find out when it comes to important things that native people care about, like getting access to information, who attended residential schools, who went through that brutality, and can they get the names from government, that they cannot, they have to take it to court. Will Bill C-58 make things worse or better? According to first nation groups who testified, it will make it worse as first nations seek to settle land claims. Oftentimes documents are needed to settle a land claim. Who has those documents? The crown has them. Will Bill C-58 make things worse or better? It will make them worse.

The Liberals talk about working collaboratively. They stood in the House and said they are going to work collaboratively with the opposition. We took them on their word. We took the information given to us from these expert witnesses, from people in the media who use access to information all the time, from first nations, from environmental advocates, from Democracy Watch, and we put them into amendments. What did the Liberals do? En masse, they voted one after another to shoot them all down. They said they worked with us, they collaborated with us, they co-operated with us. I have no idea how they define those terms, but my idea of collaboration and co-operation is to listen to expert testimony and then to properly consider it.

The Liberals moved some cosmetic amendments at the end of the process. I asked Liberal colleagues who were moving the amendments if they could explain them, because clearly they must understand what they were doing. However, they had to huddle, they had to get together, time and time again. This is a travesty. If we look through our history as a country since the access to information laws have existed, some of the most important stories in our country have only come to light because someone was able to apply an access to information request. The Prime Minister says again and again that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

The enormous power that the federal government has must be held in check. That is the way that democracy works, if it works at all. The way to hold government in check is to have information to counter, particularly when government is lying, misleading Canadians, misappropriating funds, or conducting itself in a way other than what it promised.

If we go back through our history, how did we learn about type 1 diabetics in Canada being rejected? That was an ATIP request. The government did not say it had changed policy, that people with type 1 diabetes will now not get their disability tax credits. No, it was an access to information request that found that Revenue Canada was going to describe that policy in a new way and go from accepting 90% of applicants to rejecting 90% of applicants who have type 1 diabetes. That was an access to information request.

Robyn Doolittle from The Globe and Mail gave an incredibly comprehensive analysis of sexual assaults in Canada, on what the situation is with under-reporting and reporting. How did she find that out? It was through access to information. With regard to the Afghan detainees, Canadians in Afghanistan, possibly contrary to international law, were transferring prisoners to the Afghan government. That was discovered through access to information. How did we find out about the sponsorship scandal, where millions and millions of dollars, which was purported to sponsor ads and promote Canada, was ending up in the pockets of Liberal political operatives in Quebec. How did we find that out? Did the government self-disclose and say, “By the way, we have been stealing millions of dollars”?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, say the Liberals. Oh, my, what delusional sense of history do the Liberals have? That only came to light because Mr. Leblanc from The Globe and Mail dug and dug into government information. He used a part of the Access to Information Act and asked for the documents between this date to that date from a certain department. Under Bill C-58, that would not be allowed anymore. Who told us that? The Information Commissioner told us that. She said that if the same request had come in after this bill becomes law, we would have never learned about the whole sponsorship scandal. We would have never learned that Liberals in that part of the country were padding their pockets with public money. People went to jail over this, a government fell over this, as it should have, because it was stealing. It was stealing money under the guise of some sponsorship program, and it was only because of access to information that we found this out.

The residential school survivors have been fighting with government for decades for the simple acknowledgement that they or their parents attended a certain residential school at which they were abused horrifically, and for which the Government of Canada was dragged, finally, to apologize for. That only came to light because of access to information. Government does not disclose these things. The Liberals say that they are going to self-disclose and that should be good. We heard from the Information Commissioner's office that complaints have been rising since its new disclosure policy.

We have also heard from the Information Commissioner's office that with these terms, if a request is deemed vexatious by the government, it can deny the request. What does that mean? It is vexatious to whom, to some department that has been badly handling public funds? Yes, I bet that information would look vexatious. The government is going to tell Canadians it is sorry, they cannot have the information they requested because it thinks it is vexatious. It is going to hurt its feelings, and someone might get fired for doing bad. We want to be able to shine light on these things, not go in the opposite direction.

The Information Commissioner asked for order-making powers, and the Liberals promised this. The Information Commissioner would have the ability to demand documents from government and not have government delay and deny. With the amendments in this bill, the commissioner was asked how this would affect order-making power. She said it would not be a true order-making power, and may in fact delay the process for Canadians even longer because they will end up in the courts more often.

Lastly, we asked the Information Commissioner, the watchdog, an officer of Parliament who works on behalf of all of us, if the government consulted with her and if it offered more in the way of a budget, because enforcing this is going to cost a lot more money due to going to court a lot more often. The answer was no.

Again, the Liberals are talking about how they like to consult, how they like to include, how they like to be collaborative. With every proposal we made to change this bill, to try to save this bill from itself, to help Liberals keep a Liberal promise, one of the hardest things to do in politics, they rejected every single one. They allowed the technical amendments from their side and changed a comma here and moved a period there. Congratulations.

However, the fundamental DNA of this bill is designed to make access to information more difficult for Canadians. That is not me talking, that is the Information Commissioner, aboriginal groups, and advocates across the political spectrum who say that things will get worse under this law.

This is the sense of entitlement. This is a hypocritical approach to politics that discourages Canadians so fundamentally. If Liberals are sincere about working with the opposition, they would amend the bill based on the evidence we heard, rather than their own world view, which will make it so much more difficult for Canadians to hold truth to power.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, the member is wrong. Things will not get worse. In fact, in a year from now, I suspect that the member across the way will regret many of the things he has said.

Let me give a specific example. The NDP has always fought proactive disclosure. That member in particular was one of the members who led the fight against proactive disclosure for members of Parliament. Now, today, in this legislation, we have proactive disclosure, including the release of ministerial mandate letters. The member across the way mocks that. What does a ministerial mandate letter do? It tells Canadians about the priorities of different departments.

What we hear from the New Democrats is, “Well, who cares about that?” Let me suggest to the member opposite that Canadians care. They genuinely care about what the Prime Minister establishes for priorities within the many different departments. Only the New Democrats would fight against proactive disclosure. Only the New Democrats would fight against having ministerial mandate letters made public.

My question for the members is, does he believe that Stephen Harper should have had his ministerial mandate letters made public, or does he believe in the old system where there was less transparency and less accountability?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was asked by a colleague if that was a speech or a yelling contest. I think my friend is participating in a yelling contest. At that, he could win; we have no doubt. I am going to grant him that. He can yell louder and longer than most people I have ever met.

With regard to ministerial mandate letters and bringing in electoral reform, where did that go? “We will return home delivery by the post office to Canadians.” That was in a mandate letter. It helped that it was public, and then they broke it, I suppose.

This is serious. My friend looks to make light of it, but this is serious. My friend says, “So what if we're making access to information harder according to the Information Commissioner? So what if first nations are going to have to struggle even harder than they have to gain access?” That is why, today, the Assembly of First Nations, a group to whom the Liberals swear such promise and fealty, are looking at an emergency resolution to reject this bill. It does not matter much to the member, as he smiles so nicely.

The Liberals have a problem. They do not actually want to have access to information. They do not want to tell us what the finance minister owns in his numbered companies. They do not want to tell us when and where they sell shares. The Liberals do not actually want it, but they want to pretend at it. They have all the words, but I fear that Canadians—

[An hon. member]

It is a conspiracy.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No conspiracy. This is in legislation. This is in the bill that the Liberals just introduced. The Prime Minister and Liberals say they would like to give less access to information to Canadians, and Canadians will learn the experience of trying to access information that belongs to them in the first place.

I think the parliamentary secretary might regret some of the words he has uttered today.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am profoundly disappointed that my colleague ran out of time. I would like to ask him, is there anything else he would like to say?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is one of the best questions I have ever had. I do not even know where to start.

Let me add this, because I do not think we got to it. With regard to the notion of vexatious and bad faith, who determines it? The department holding the information gets to determine if a request coming from a Canadian is in bad faith. The department can deem that a request asking for information from its department is in bad faith or vexatious. It is not defined in the law. No, it is interpreted by the government that is holding the information.

On normal day-to-day information, this is not going to be a serious issue. However, when it is sensitive information, embarrassing information, information that the government does not want out, all it has to do is take out a big stamp in the department and slam down “vexatious” or “bad faith”, and then it is rejected.

The only power that the Information Commissioner has is to take the whole thing to court if Canadians complain. The government is already applying this bill, even though it has not passed Parliament. The Information Commissioner's office is already filing complaints on behalf of Canadians because they are not getting information already, and the bill has not passed. Let us imagine when this bill becomes law, which the Liberals, by the way and ironically, have shut down debate on.

There is no truer sense of irony from the Liberals that they are closing off, suffocating debate in Parliament—more than Stephen Harper did—on a bill that is talking about the need to provide access to information to Canadians. My goodness, the hubris on that side. When Canadians hear these stories and they go through the experience, time will tell for the government. It is breaking its solemn word to Canadians.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my impassioned colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I wish I had the same level of anger. I should, but today I really come to this debate with absolute sadness at the missed opportunity before us in Bill C-58.

When the Liberals introduced this legislation, they called it in their press release “the most comprehensive reform of Access to Information in a generation”. It sure was not.

I want to talk about what the Civil Liberties Association has said, what first nations have said, what trade unions have said, what journalists have said, all of which has been to pan this effort as an appalling waste of time.

I could not do better than to quote my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who in turn quoted the Information Commissioner, who has the most expertise of anyone on the bill. She said has said it is “regressive”. She has said to Canadians that if the bill were not significantly amended, “I would much prefer to keep the status quo”, namely, the Stephen Harper version of access to information than the one before us. That must be so galling for Liberals to hear. Then we heard today in the House, “Oh, no, that was before the wonderful amendments we brought in, which have made it all better so we should not be concerned”, referring to all those people who had concerns.

They have not made it right. They have made cosmetic changes to minor parts of the bill that make no difference to the main event, which has always been the exceptions to the rule of disclosure, the exceptions that carve away the right that was given in the main section of the bill, and those exceptions were not touched.

In committee I introduced on behalf of the NDP a dozen or more amendments to the exceptions, and not one was accepted. There were 20 amendments in total, but in regard to the exceptions, there were about a dozen amendments that many activists have talked about. This is not radical stuff. The Information Commissioner told us to suggest those amendments, not to make the bill regressive, but to make it better. How many of those were accepted? Zero.

The government has the gall to stand here before Canadians and take credit for something that is such an absolute farce. I find it appalling that we are in this position.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity, indeed the honour, to stand with five chiefs from across this great country who do research on residential school settlements, on grievances involving specific claims, on land claims generally, including cut-off land claims. Every single one of them said they were not consulted and that this law would make things worse. I thought no relationship was more important to the Prime Minister than with first nations. One could have heard a pin drop in that press conference as one after another stood up to castigate the Liberal government for yet another broken promise.

This is not just another bill. This is what the courts have termed “quasi-constitutional” legislation, in this case dealing with the essential right to know in a democracy. If we do not know what is going on and cannot find out, we live in a totalitarian state.

Back in the 1980s, the government at the time finally introduced an access to information bill, and a generation later it has ossified. It is legislation that no longer does the trick. The government did not even have computers in active use back then, so clearly things needed to change, and yet the changes the current government has proposed involve things like getting access to ministers' mandate letters.

Moreover, now the government can tell us what we want to know under something called “proactive disclosure”. Far be it for me to criticize making more information available, but proactive disclosure will involve the government letting us know by what it puts on a website, as if that were somehow the same as a person making a request to the Prime Minister's Office for information, as was done during the sponsorship scandal when The Globe and Mail and Daniel Leblanc told Canadians about the abuses of their tax dollars. That is because they had the right to make a request and, finally, ATIP delivered.

The government therefore wants to conflate access to information and proactive disclosure, a doctrine that has been around for many years in most provinces and in the federal government. It has been put in a statute and we are supposed to think it is the most comprehensive reform of access to information in a generation. It is just absurd.

I care deeply about this. I did my graduate work on freedom of information. I drafted the B.C. legislation and the Yukon legislation. I know when Canadians are being hoodwinked, and they are being hoodwinked by the bill before us. I think it needs to be withdrawn, and we need to do it right for Canadians. The experts are unanimous that the bill is in dire need of reform because the bill basically only codifies existing practices.

British Columbia and most of the provinces have a very simple way of enabling an information commissioner to order the disclosure of information. After a few days, if the government does not choose to judicially review the order of the commissioner, it is the law, and the government shall disclose it. I invite members to look at the so-called order-making power in the bill to see if they can figure it out, because the Information Commission does not believe it to be anything like what the term “order-making powers” would suggest.

Interestingly, I believe that the only private member's bill the Prime Minister sponsored when he was in opposition was on reforming the access to information and privacy acts. On the Access to Information Act, one of the specific things he wanted to do was to make ministers' offices open, which is to say that one could make a request and the office should respond, and likewise the Prime Minster's Office.

I will say it again, the government is conflating proactive disclosure, namely what it wants to tell us, and the ability of any citizen to ask for information and have the Information Commissioner order it disclosed. That is how it works in my province of British Columbia, and it works very well. Most of the time, cases are settled. Ninety-some percent of cases over the decades have been resolved through mediation. This need not be expensive. It need not be convoluted.

However, the government has provided something like a camel invented by committee. A horse invented by committee is a camel, and the bill before us is a camel. What if people wanted to know, for example, about the Prime Minister's Christmas vacations or whether a minister's villa were held within a private company? Would they be able to ask for that information? Well, it would not be proactively disclosed, I do not believe, which, of course, is one of the crucial difficulties with the proposed legislation.

Canadians also need to know that the government has not abolished the $5 fee, which is a tollgate on citizens' right to access. How much does it cost to cash a cheque for $5? It is $55. This is our government in action, which is why Canadians are basically paying millions of dollars to deny information to other Canadians. There is no duty to document, as requested by the commissioner. The exemptions have not changed, as I indicated, and every academic and every researcher comes down hard on this legislation. We know we are in trouble when the Canadian Association of Research Libraries comes down hard on a bill like this.

I want to end by saying, would it not be nice if quasi-constitutional legislation involving privacy and our rights to information were somehow taken more seriously, that we had an opportunity to really engage in debate at committee and, as a generational change, to get it right? Unfortunately, the government is about to deprive us of that right. The Liberals have used time allocation to bring down the guillotine so that we will not have any more opportunity to discuss this quasi-constitutional legislation in this place. It is a travesty. It is appalling. Canadians deserve better.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

There will be five minutes for questions and comments on the hon. member's speech following question period.

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.

Access to Information Act

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the good member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

It is often said that image is everything. I share that observation because never before in modern day Canadian history have we witnessed a prime minister who is as image conscious as the member for Papineau is. I am not here today to debate the merits or lack thereof of that point, but rather to point out how that branding exercise led us to Bill C-58.

For those who were not here in the previous Parliament, I shall indulge a little. Shortly after becoming the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the member for Papineau was creating his brand. Part of that brand, and we hear it all the time, was the “sunlight is the best disinfectant” routine. It played well in the Liberal narrative that the former prime minister led the most secretive government in Canada's history, so the member for Papineau introduced a private member's bill to highlight that.

As some will know, during the last election the Liberals again made many of the same open government style promises, similar to what was in the Prime Minister's earlier private member's bill. As usual, these promises used many of the correct buzzwords. They looked good. They sounded good. There was only one problem: the Liberals got elected and now those promises have to be fulfilled.

That leads to our second problem. Bill C-58 does not do exactly that. In fact, it fails so badly that the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada stated in the headline of a news release that “Bill C-58 results in a regression of the rights to access to information”. If we think about that statement for a moment, it is not by a member of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, or the third party, but from the office of an independent officer of Parliament.

Not only that, the bill actually breaks the Prime Minister's own commitments. Despite the commitment to apply access to information laws to the Prime Minister's Office and his cabinet ministers, they all get a pass. It is yet another example of there being one set of rules for everyone else, but a look-the-other-way clause when it comes to the most senior Liberal insiders. That is a growing problem with how the Prime Minister and his small, elite inner circle does things. Many of our constituents are becoming tired of it.

I was not a supporter of the Prime Minister's earlier private member's bill. As I was the parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board at that time, I was aware that some of the proposed measures were administratively problematic, and I came into this place and said as much.

The problem here is that those challenges were always well known, but in spite of them, the Prime Minister was happy to campaign on them and promise them anyway. Therefore, like many of those priorities and promises, they get thrown by the wayside now that the Prime Minister and his small inner circle control the levers of power.

That is not principled leadership. To promise things one can deliver on, but chooses not to do so is a betrayal. There are other words to describe that, but I would never want to be unparliamentary.

Here we are. We have a bill that the Information Commissioner essentially condemns. Virtually all of those who frequently make access to information requests and use the ATIP legislation have also widely condemned the bill. In fact, during my research, I could find no significant support for the bill whatsoever. If there is, I would really like to hear government members say so. Basically, all expert opinion gives it a fail. It does not meet the promises the Prime Minister made.

In fact, The Globe and Mail reports that Canada's access to information system has become worse under the Liberal Prime Minister. We all know that the bill would not fix that. Many experts suggest that it will only make things worse.

I will not suggest the last government was perfect on the subject either, but we were on the right track. In 2013, the former government released nearly six million pages of information to Canadians, an increase of over a million and a half pages over the preceding year.

Under Bill C-58, we will have a law that says the Prime Minister's office and his ministers can tell Canadians to pound sand when it comes to access to information requests. Keep this in mind. This is the same Prime Minister who was happy to build his brand and score points after promising he would do the exact opposite.

I will again ask the question I recently asked. The Prime Minister, as we all know, came into this place and said “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” Why did he say that? Did he say it because it was politically convenient to do so at the time? Did he say it because it showed the principle should only apply to everyone else but himself and his ministers? Did he say it because it happened to be true?

Before I close, I will ask a question. Right now we have a very serious situation where single parents, primarily single mothers, are being unfairly targeted by the Canada Revenue Agency. As a result, in many cases, their Canada child benefits are being delayed, denied, or even clawed back in some cases. We also know that those with type 1 diabetes are also being disturbingly targeted by CRA.

I will credit many backbench Liberal MPs who I know are just as concerned about this situation as I am. I also know that several of them are reaching out to try to help some of those who are being unfairly targeted by this. Some have even stated publicly that they are also concerned.

The ultimate challenge is this. What is the minister going to do to solve this problem? Ultimately that is where the problem is. Thanks to Bill C-58, we will never know. That may be good enough for some. It certainly was not good enough for the member for Papineau, when he was handing out gift bags of election promises, a continued pattern of broken promises that results in one level of rules for senior Liberal insiders and another set for everyone else not the sunlight of disinfectant the Prime Minister promised.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, let us just assume for a second that the member is correct, which I do not believe he is, that the legislation does not attempt to fix the problems we seek to fix.

On what ground does the member and the opposing party have to stand when the Conservative track record did absolutely nothing for openness and transparency? The ministerial letters were all kept in secret. They did not advance any objective toward more openness, accountability, and transparency.

On what ground does the member and the opposition party have to stand in making the comments they are making today? I have been listening to them making these comments throughout the day.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I heard the member during question period, and he asks a great lob question.

In 2009-10, we invested in access to information. It was a 10% increase, which saw, by the time 2013 came around, a reduction in the amount of time it took to get access to information requests. We were improving that record.

The bill would make it easier for someone to call it vexatious request and to deny the request for that reason. When he was a member of Parliament in the third party in the corner, the Prime Minister put forward a swath of propositions to improve the system, campaigned on them, and, in his own mandate tracker, has said that the Liberals are on track to do them, when the bill would do nothing for it.

By the Liberals' standards of transparency, the mandate tracker and Bill C-58 leave much to be desired.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, consistently Conservative after Conservative stands and tries to give what I would classify as a false impression. We know that within the legislation there will be more accountability, transparency, and proactive disclosure. The commissioner will have more authority. No matter how the Conservatives try to twist and bend that, the truth is the truth. We will see more transparency and accountability with the passage of the legislation.

Why does the Conservative Party oppose the Government of Canada, once again, fulfilling another election platform by ensuring more accountability and transparency in the House?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to point out the quote I gave from the Information Commissioner, an officer of this Parliament. She says, “Bill C-58 results in a regression of the rights of access for information.”

No credible third parties have said that Bill C-58 will deliver specifically on what the member and his government campaigned. If he wants to say that Bill C-58 will revolutionize access to information, we would think someone out there in civil society would support the government. I do not see that. I do not hear that. Could it be because there is no one?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to refer to the mandate letters. Many times today we have heard government colleagues refer to the mandate letters and the great value of them. Whether it was the mandate letter on electoral reform, the promise to deliver mail, or even the mandate letter to the finance minister, they have not been followed.

What value are those open and transparent mandate letters if they are not used?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, whether we are talking about the mandate letters or ministerial question period books being made available, we get that anyway. When a government comes to office, it usually has a full campaign document outlining all the commitments. The previous Harper government, in 2011 when we were elected, had about 111 promises. We kept over 105 of them.

It is really important to know that Canadians care about that. Elected officials should keep their word. If things change, they should be open, transparent, communicate that to the Canadian public, and then be held accountable for that. Changes to the mandate tracker do not do that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Before we resume debate, there is a point of order.

The hon. member for Hochelaga.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, at the conclusion of today's debate on the motion for third reading of Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, every question necessary to dispose of the said motion shall be deemed put, and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on Wednesday, December 6, 2017.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

(Motion agreed to)

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to add some comments to the debate today. I am not pleased to rise to add comments, because, again, we have before us legislation that certainly does not live up to the standards the government has set for itself, and is significantly flawed.

One of the most concerning things about the legislation is this, and it is important for the listeners to hear is this. If the Liberals think the legislation is right, they should also listen.

This is from Suzanne Legault, the Ethics Commissioner. She said:

When I was preparing for this committee, I went back to the request that was made by Daniel Leblanc, the journalist who uncovered the sponsorship scandal. That request would not have met the...requirement under Bill C-58.

As people might recall, the sponsorship scandal was a Liberal scandal. Millions of taxpayer dollars were diverted. Therefore, for the Liberals to have legislation before us that they are saying is adding benefit and value, when Suzanne Legault says that about it, we wonder what they are trying to do and what they are trying to hide.

The amendments to Canada's Access to Information Act will affect every organization that shares information with the federal government and every individual who wants access to that information. While the Liberals are claiming to improve the act, the content of the bill is not only deficient in truly bringing the act forward, but it also opens a lot of loopholes for the Liberal government to refuse to process certain information.

I will look at something that has been happening over the last few days.

This morning I was at the AFN conference and I listened to the minister speak. She talked about how long comprehensive and specific land claims took and how that was unacceptable to the government. She talked about needing a process that moved forward in a more robust way to recognize aboriginal title rights and to resolve these long-standing issues. On the other hand, and this was quite ironic, she said this to the assembly of chiefs, that today we were debating this legislation in the House.

This is what some very important indigenous organizations have said about this.

The National Claims Research Directors stated:

Bill C-58 will greatly impair the ability of First Nations to document their claims, grievances, and disputes with the Government of Canada and will significantly impede First Nations’ access to justice in resolving their claims. The Bill...significantly undermines First Nations’ existing rights of access to information.

That hardly sounds like the commitment the minister made this morning to the chiefs, to have a bill before the House that would significantly impact their ability to do the very thing that she said needed to move forward in an expeditious way.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada recently conducted an audit of Canada's specific claim process. The OAG report, released in November 2016, concluded that Canada's Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs introduced numerous barriers that hindered the resolution of claims, including by restricting information.

Therefore, if passed into law, Bill C-58 will impose substantive new barriers to the resolution of first nation claims. It will also provide legislative authority for the suppression of evidence, which first nations require to pursue their claims against Canada. Revisions to the act will enshrine into legislation overly prescriptive and inappropriate requirements for applicants seeking records, as well as providing legislative grounds for government bodies to deny access to records that are vital to first nations.

Therefore, it is important to look at what the government has said it will do and what it actually does when it puts legislation forward. This is truly another broken promise by the Liberal government.

During their election campaign, the Liberals claimed they would extend the act so it applied to the Prime Minister's and ministers' offices. However, that will not be the case.

Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence for Democracy, has stated:

By excluding the ability to request information from ministers' offices and the PMO, this government falls short of meeting their campaign promise to make government “open by default”.

Moreover, this legislation would enable the government to refuse any access to information requests if it believes they are vexatious, made in bad faith, or a misuse of the right to request information. Refusal to respond to a request will be subject to a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner will have the power to force communication of every document or part of it under the control of federal institutions.

A government that chooses what to publish and when is not democratic and cannot be accountable to its citizens. That is fundamental. For all their talk about sunshine being a disinfectant, the Liberals have introduced darkness through the back door.

In a democratic state, a government should be open and transparent to its citizens, so why are the Liberals going out of their way to hide behind closed doors and refusing Canadians the right to fundamental information?

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, states:

The bill take a step backwards in allowing government officials to deny requests for information if they think the request is frivolous or made in bad faith. Public officials should not be given this power, as they will likely use it as a new loophole to deny the public information it has a right to know.

I am going to tell the House about a personal situation closer to home. I have a constituent who faced a significant small business challenge, and while he was in Ottawa he met with a number of different folks within the government, including some policy advisers. He needed to get some information from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He was facing a difficult situation, and when he looked into getting information, he was told that it would take 479 days to obtain what he needed. He would have to wait one year and 4 months to obtain information that was critical for his business, and not only his livelihood, but the livelihoods of his many employees.

Despite the promise to be more transparent, the Trudeau government is failing. As the Toronto Star has stated:

The national freedom of information audit found the federal access system is bogged down to the point where, in many cases, it simply doesn’t work....

The researchers found the federal system continues to be far slower and less responsive than provincial and municipal freedom of information regimes....

Just one-quarter of requests to federal government departments, agencies and Crown corporations were answered within the 30-day limit. One-third of the requests had not received a response by the end of the audit, which means those requests were outstanding for three months or more, with most closer to four months. The RCMP, Health Canada and National Defence were three institutions that cited large backlogs of requests, leading to bottlenecks and delayed responses. Information on pages eventually released under the federal access law can be blacked out for a variety of reasons including national security, legal privilege and commercial confidentiality.

They would get stuff that was totally blacked out.

Clearly the system is not working. The Liberal government committed to fixing the system and, quite frankly, it has made it much worse.

The Liberals issued their own mandate tracker, which has been quickly derided, but gave themselves an A+ for moving this legislation forward and telling Canadians how valuable, important, and great it would be in terms of new transparency. That is completely inaccurate.

I started my remarks by saying if this were in place and if it had cut off the initial investigation of the sponsorship scandal, then it is clearly not a piece of legislation that should pass through the House.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was listening with interest to the presentation across the way and heard a lot of criticism of how the system is currently functioning. The member said it is slow and people are not getting the information they want. As far as I know, the Access to Information Act has not been updated in 34 years. She and members of her party had an opportunity to update that legislation, taking into account all of the changes that have been happening with the Internet and the like.

Does the member not think it was a priority to deal with that so we would not have to wait? Clearly, she feels that the current situation is unacceptable and that change is needed, which is exactly what we are doing.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was very proud when the Conservatives came into government that the accountability act was a huge step forward. However, no update is better than a bad update.

What we have now are first nations communities saying that the current government will make their lives more difficult, and Suzanne Legault saying that first nations cannot get information that was really critical in the past. It would not meet the new standards that have been set.

I would finish by saying that the Liberals have introduced legislation that is worse than the status quo, and the status quo was not acceptable.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, to follow up on the exchange between my colleague on the Liberal side and my friend from British Columbia, the Liberals seem to be saying that these changes in Bill C-58 will increase transparency and assist Canadians in getting more information from their own government. In fact, it seems to be far more regressive than anything we have seen in the last 34 years.

Does my colleague from British Columbia think that if the changes in Bill C-58 are legislated, it would mean that the government would, on its own volition, be able to determine what information it chooses to give to Canadians?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. Clearly, that is what this bill would do.

Had it been the previous Conservative government that introduced this bill in a similar form, the Liberals would have been outraged and pointing out its flaws, just as I have today in my speech. They would not have supported it for a minute. While the government says this bill is so transparent and such a great move forward, I am almost certain they would never have supported it in the past when we were government.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Madam Speaker, my thanks to my friend from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo for her intervention today. I am struck by the characterization of this bill as regressive when, in fact, it addresses a number of issues that were highlighted by Canadians during the previous government's tenure, but never acted upon.

“Open by default” is now the official stance of this government, as pronounced by the Treasury Board. We are seeing great advances toward that, such as the order-making power for the commissioner and disclosure requirements being extended to the Prime Minister's Office and to officers of Parliament.

However, I do want to ask a question about my colleague's remarks on indigenous affairs. I will begin by commending her for her tremendous work on behalf of indigenous peoples in Canada.

Members of indigenous claims organizations, who are very important stakeholders in this, were consulted. That is why a number of amendments were made at committee. Does the member think those amendments were helpful to indigenous claims organizations?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, the AFN is looking at issuing an emergency resolution because it is so concerned about this particular bill. Clearly, whatever amendments were done at committee were not satisfactory.

That is all we need to say on that issue.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, I recently became chair of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee, where this bill was brought. We talked about all of its positives, which were few, and many of its shortcomings. The shortcomings were highlighted by the many witnesses we heard from.

I think the most significant would be the commissioner herself, who said:

When I was preparing for this committee, I went back to the request that was made by Daniel Leblanc, the journalist who uncovered the sponsorship scandal. That request would not have met the new requirement under Bill C-58.

That highlights what I want to speak to today. We have heard many talking points. It is one thing to actually be in committee and hear all the testimony exposing all of the problems with Bill C-58, but another to hear other members regurgitate talking points that just demonstrate their lack of knowledge of the opposition to the bill.

That is what I want to point out today, the contrast between that and a government that came in with sunny ways and wanted to have sunlight shining on problems to highlight issues.

I neglected to announce that I will be sharing my time with the member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

What I think people watching this debate today need to understand is that they have been sold the idea that the government is more open and accountable, and that what is really happening is the opposite. What is happening through Bill C-58 is actually more cover-up, from ministers' offices, the Prime Minister's staff, etc.

We are going to see more cover-up and more protection of information. Frankly, as the commissioner mentioned, access to information is why we found out about the sponsorship scandal, and why a previous Liberal government failed and did not get re-elected, because of that particular scandal and the really bad things that were happening that we found out about as a result of that information.

I am just going to read through a few quotes for the benefit of those watching today, from a few of the people who oppose the bill. It is not just Conservatives who are opposed to this, or New Democrats, although both parties are. It is groups outside this place who have spoken against it. I will first cite one particular quote by Mr. Marleau, the information commissioner from 2007-09:

For the ministries, there's no one to review what they choose not to disclose, and I think that goes against the principle of the statute.

He further stated:

They’ve taken the commissioner out of the loop. If you ask for these briefing notes, and you’ve got them and they were redacted, you had someone to appeal to. So there’s no appeal. You can’t even go to a court. It’s one step forward, two steps back.

Again, let us let that sink in a little. Liberals give the illusion that they are moving forward on the issue, and, really, they are moving backwards. It is deliberate, because they want to cover up or have the ability to cover up some things being communicated in the Prime Minister's Office.

Again, I have another quote, this time from Vincent Gogolek, another individual speaking against this bill:

All they have to do is claim it’s a cabinet document, and then with her new improved powers she still can’t look at it, which is ridiculous.... So, when in doubt, call it a cabinet document. That’s the big problem, and that remains untouched.

All that needs to be said about a particular document in government is that it is a cabinet document, and therefore black ink will go across it whenever it is requested. Again, it is one thing to say this about any particular government that does not make claims about being more open and accountability, but another to say it about a government that campaigned on being more open and accountable. This is what the Prime Minister's schtick was about: sunny ways and shining a light where there previously were shadows. It is is simply a bait-and-switch. It is saying one thing and doing another.

I have another quote, this time by Katie Gibbs, executive director of the Evidence for Democracy Group, who said:

By excluding the ability to request information from ministers' offices and the PMO, this government falls short of meeting their campaign promise to make government 'open by default'....

Moreover, the possibility of refusing certain access to information requests on an undefined basis jeopardizes the transparency and openness of the government.

Once again, another person outside this place is saying that the proposed legislation is supposed to be doing one thing, but it is doing completely the other. It is causing more cover-up to be possible rather than exposing the truth.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said that the bill proposes good amendments by requiring a more proactive publication of some information and giving the information commissioner the power to order the publication of some information, but it does nothing to fill the huge gaps in the act as was promised by the Liberals. Therefore, we need more changes to have a government which is transparent and open by default.

Let us think about the sponsorship scandal and the evidence that was being put forward, and the government just saying no, that it is not going to talk about it.

Mr. Conacher says the bill is “a step backwards in allowing government officials to deny requests for information if they think the request is frivolous or made in bad faith.” Public servants should not have this authority, because “they will likely use it as a new loophole to deny the public information it has a right to know.

I will speak as chair of the access to information, privacy and ethics committee. Some of the information that was brought before committee really attempted changes based on the recommendations. It was our party's position to support the recommendations of the Information Commissioner, and there are several. It was our position to see those go through. Well, the bill was not changed. The bill has not been significantly changed, and therefore it is still a problem for us.

I was hopeful that the Liberals would take the Information Commissioner's recommendations and understand that maybe it was a flawed document initially, which they would now fix. However, that did not happen in committee, and I want Parliament and people watching today to understand that. Again, the government is saying one thing and doing another.

An article in iPolitics by Steve Mayer is entitled “Liberals shockingly timid on access-to-information reform”. This does not sound like a government that wants to change access to information in a positive way. It sounds like it is going the other way, as I said before. However, the article reads:

We don’t really know, though, because the emails that would tell the tale are in the inboxes of the prime minister’s staff, and the Access to Information Act does not apply to ministerial staff...What the government has decided to do is not what Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault recommended, which is to have Access-to-information officers determine whether emails and memos from ministerial staff are political or parliamentary (in which case they would remain confidential)

The commissioner does not even have the ability to decide which is which. It is all in the hands of the Prime Minister's Office and ministers.

The article continues with:

or pertain to running a department (in which case they would be releasable). Instead of doing that — which is what they promised —

Again, this is an article talking about what the Liberals said they were going to do in Bill C-58. It continues with:

[the minister's] changes to the act would provide for the proactive disclosure of documents — briefing books and notes for question period — that until now have been released only in response to requests.

This means many useful documents will be released routinely, and it follows similar measures that Trudeau began in opposition, when he unilaterally released personal financial information and got his MPs to start posting their expenses online.

Again, the article is not criticizing him for the positive steps that he has made, but certainly the cover-up continues.

As chair of the committee, there was a hope that this would be something that the Liberals would follow through on and take the recommendations of the Information Commissioner. However, we saw quite a different story. We saw a government that would talk one game in front of the cameras and one game on the campaign trail, but when it came to making solid legislation that would expose those shadows that I had mentioned, it did the complete opposite and would give the ability for ministers to shadow even more information.

Sadly, this is what we are debating today. I hope the government does see sunnier ways and votes against Bill C-58.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I want to remind the member that he cannot use the name of a member who is or is not in the House but who is a sitting member.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciated hearing the rundown and commentary about the bill, yet clearly what keeps on being flagged as I am listening to this conversation is that there is a need for greater access to information, a need to open things up. The current system clearly needed to be worked on and this is what we are doing. I see a bill before the House that addresses the very types of concerns put forth.

The fact is it is wonderful to push back and say here are all these problems, but there were some constructive changes made at committee and perhaps the member having a role on the committee would like to speak to the amendments that were made at committee to make the bill better.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not remember the member being at committee to witness what the testimony was and what the recommendations were. We are not talking about dotting i's in certain areas and crossing t's in other areas. We are talking about substantive changes to make the shadows that exist in the bill not shadows any longer. We simply did not get that at committee.

What is a concern to most of us is similar to what the Information Commissioner Ms. Legault has been saying. At least the status quo stays the same, but what is worse is by introducing something that is worse. The changes the government is proposing to the current law are going to make it worse. Once again, a government that is supposed to shine light on the shadows is trying to build more and that is unfortunate.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I hate to say I enjoy this phenomenon that happens in the House when the Liberals and the Conservatives stand and accuse each other of being worse at things. Here again, the Conservatives say Liberals are worse than them and the Liberals say they were terrible, but we do not get to a solution that serves Canadians.

Why is it that, no matter what political stripe, Liberal or Conservative, governments have found it so easy not to adopt the very obvious recommendations that we need so Canadians can get access to information in a timely manner?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member from the other party likes to watch us debate this issue, but everyone on our side says if there is something that needs to be exposed, we should absolutely expose it. We are sent here to be a democracy in this place.

As the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, we want to have truth exposed in this place so the taxpayers can see what we are doing. We have done that. As the member to my right has said, we are the ones who brought in disclosure of our finances as members of Parliament. That is something the Conservatives have brought to shine the light on what we do in this place and some of the Senate reforms that have come in as a result, when we were in government previously from 2011-15.

There is a lot of talk about what we did not do. I know the NDP and Liberals like to talk about that because it is popular to bash Conservatives, but when we were in government we did exactly that. We did cause greater scrutiny for ourselves and exposed to the outside what we do on a regular basis. That is what we really did.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, during the debate today, much of the commentary from the governing party side has amounted to more or less “since there has been no change to the bill in 34 years, should we not give Liberals enormous amounts of credit for stepping up and changing the bill and vote for it”. I thank the member for pointing out that sometimes a bad bill is actually worse.

Could he perhaps comment on the extraordinary amount of credit that the party seems to be seeking, while more or less asking us to give it credit for breaking its own election promise and supporting the bill?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have said that it is not doing what it is purporting to do in exposing those shadows. That is the biggest thing that let me down. I have always said in past campaigns that if it is a good idea, it is a good idea regardless of whether it comes from an NDP member, a Liberal member, or a Conservative member. If it is a good idea, it is a good idea. If there is truly this open and accountable government and we want to shine a light where it needs to be shone, I am absolutely supportive. We are deeply disappointed it did not go where the government promised it would go in Bill C-58 and that is unfortunate.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-58 and, in the words of our Prime Minister, shed some light on this less-than-true statement that members opposite have been making regarding this legislation.

Let us look at the mandate letter that was given to the Minister of Finance in November 2015. The Prime Minister wrote:

We have promised Canadians a government that will bring real change – in both what we do and how we do it.

That sure has changed. The Information Commissioner has been clear: this bill sets us back decades in terms of openness and transparency. I will share more of the Information Commissioner's thoughts a bit later in my remarks.

The Prime Minister went on to write in his mandate letter to the finance minister:

I expect Canadians to hold us accountable for delivering these commitments, and I expect all ministers to do their part....

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government.

There has never been a more perfect example of how the current government is all style and no substance than this one, focusing on rhetoric and platitudes more than actual substance. This has to take the cake. The Liberals love to throw around terms like “openness and transparency” when in reality they are, through this legislation, making it harder for Canadians to access information under the current government. As members know, often the debates here in the House can be tainted with partisan political positioning, so rather than sharing my thoughts on the legislation, please allow me to read into the record parts of the Information Commissioner of Canada's report, titled “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”. The commissioner stated:

The Liberal government was elected on a platform of openness and transparency, promising to renew Canadians’ trust in their government. At the beginning of its mandate, it committed to lead a review of the outdated Access to Information Act to enhance the openness of government.

Initial policy changes from the government, such as the elimination of all fees except the $5 application fee, were early indicators of positive change. Like many Canadians, I was hopeful that the government would follow through on its promise and introduce significant improvements to the Act.

Just before Parliament’s 2017 summer break, the government tabled Bill C-58, which amends the Access to Information Act.

In short, Bill C-58 fails to deliver.

These are the Information Commissioner's words, they are not mine. I hope that members of the Liberal government will not be disregarding the comments of an independent, non-partisan officer of Parliament.

The commissioner went on to write:

The government promised the bill would ensure the Act applies to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices appropriately. It does not.

The government promised the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. It does not.

The government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not.

Rather than advancing access to information rights, Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.

It imposes added obligations on requesters when making a request, adds new grounds for institutions to decline to act in response to requests, reintroduces the possibility of various fees, and, for some information, replaces the right of access and independent oversight with proactive disclosure. It allows the government to decide what information Canadians can obtain, rather than letting Canadians decide for themselves.

I might add that this is the Liberal philosophy: Government knows best what is good for Canadians. It is insulting, it is elitist, and it is arrogant.

More from the Information Commissioner's report:

It also introduces an oversight model where the Commissioner is not truly empowered to order the disclosure of information, and adds burdensome stages to the investigation process that may lead to delays. It does not take advantage of any of the benefits of a true order-making model.

Recent reviews of the Access to Information Act from myself and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics...have proposed amendments that are required to modernize the Act. These recommendations have largely been ignored in Bill C-58.

So much for consultation. So much for openness and transparency. So much for sunny ways. So much for sunshine being the best disinfectant.

Had the changes that the Liberals are ramming through today been in effect in the early 2000s, we would never have found out about the Liberal sponsorship scandal. It makes one wonder what exactly the goal is of the current government in introducing such archaic legislation. What does it have to hide today?

The government acts as if the measures it is taking regarding proactive disclosure in this piece of legislation are somehow groundbreaking. The reality is that the majority of information was already available either online or through access to information under previous governments.

The Liberals are trying to buy off Canadians with promising to proactively disclose how much a minister's steak dinner costs, while taking away their right to request information that could be embarrassing for the government. They give the rights to departments to deny access to information requests that they find to be vexatious or made in bad faith. Who gets to make the judgment as to what is vexatious or made in bad faith? Why, the Liberal government, of course.

I have been serving in opposition for over two years now, and one does not have to look too far into the past to see how thin-skinned the Liberal government is when it comes to asking it tough questions. We can look at the finance minister as an example. For the past several weeks, we have been asking on this side of the House for the finance minister to open up and be honest with Canadians regarding his assets. What does the finance minister do? He threatens to sue members of the opposition. One has to wonder how many journalists and Canadians will be threatened similarly by the finance minister, if he thinks their access to information request is vexatious or made in bad faith.

However, enough about Liberals, let us look at our Conservative government's accomplishments regarding access to information. On November 6, 2014, our government launched the action plan on open government 2.0. The action plan specified ways that the federal government was working toward creating more open and transparent government while maximizing the sharing of government information and data.

Key accomplishments include, one, the next generation open data portal that was launched in June 2013. This new portal was built based on broad public consultations with users to define new capabilities. Enhancements were made to expand the availability of high-value data, improve data integrity, enrich the usability of the site, facilitate intuitive discovery of data, and increase user engagement.

Second was on modernization of access to information services. These online services were launched in 2013 to enable Canadians to search completed ATI requests across all federal departments through a single search interface, and to submit new access to information requests via the web.

Third, in 2013, we issued a new open government licence for all levels of government in order to remove barriers to the reuse of published government data and information, regardless of origin. This licence has also been adopted by several provincial governments and municipalities across the country.

Fourth, we introduced a new government-wide web portal at Canada.ca that improved intuitive navigation features to help Canadians find information they need more quickly and easily. The portal enables users to quickly complete tasks, features government-wide search capabilities, better use of social media, and optimizes content for mobile devices.

In February 2014, we held the largest competitive open data hackathon in Canadian history, bringing together over 900 developers, students, and open data enthusiasts from across Canada to develop over 100 innovative applications using federal data.

Our Conservative government was also promoting transparency in public institutions and supporting taxpayers and hard-working Canadians through our support for private member's Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (requirements for labour organizations). This important legislation would help to ensure greater transparency and accountability for labour unions by requiring them to publish their financial disclosures online for Canadians to examine. However, we know that these changes have been reversed.

No government is better at patting itself on the back than the current Liberal government. However, it is clear that while the government has been pumping out talking points about openness and transparency, the reality is that it is taking Canada down a very dark path.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member's last statement is just not true. The legislation would bring forward new measures that would ensure more transparency and accountability. That is not a speaking point. That is the reality of the legislation we are debating.

Many would question why the Conservatives have chosen to vote against the legislation that would provide those measures, whether it is through ministerial mandate letters, which is a new provision, or not. Under the former Stephen Harper government, there was no obligation whatsoever on him as prime minister to table mandate letters. Mandate letters are significant in the sense that they provide Canadians as a whole with a sense of what is happening in specific departments. Empowering and enabling the commissioner to request reports is something of significance. The commissioner would actually have teeth.

Does the member really believe that this legislation would not ensure more transparency and accountability?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, that question is very easy to answer. Yes, I do believe that this bill would make it less possible for Canadians to access the information they want.

The mandate letters have been referred to multiple times today in the House. I would ask my colleague, what about the mandate letters on electoral reform or door-to-door delivery? I would ask about the letter to the finance minister, in which he was charged with the responsibility of not only doing what was in the law, but beyond that, to do what is perceived to be correct. The finance minister has been charged on two different occasions by the Ethics Commissioner and fined. He has paid the fine, thereby admitting his guilt on these matters. Now we also find out that there are multiple situations where the finance minister, in spite of his constant rhetoric, saying that he has worked with the Ethics Commissioner from day one, took two years to disclose the fact that he had a villa in France, and two years to disclose the fact that he had assets in a numbered company out of province when he is living in Ontario.

The finance minister's mandate letter is not worth the paper it is written on.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to talk a bit about disclosure. New Democrats do not have a problem with proactive disclosure per se, but we strongly maintain that the Access to Information Act is not an appropriate legislative vehicle for publishing information. The act should improve the ability of Canadians to request information that the government chooses not to publish.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on information that the government chooses not to publish.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, I made a comment in my remarks about the fact that any department or minister can simply refuse to answer an access to information request on the basis of the request being vexatious, but there are two different criteria that allow them not to answer the request.

Again, what I think is not important. Let us listen to what Robert Marleau, who was Information Commissioner from 2007 to 2008, said. He stated, “There's no one [in government departments] to review what they choose not to [publish]..”. This gets to the heart of my colleague's question. There is no one in government departments to review what they choose not to publish, which is contrary to the principle of the act. They put the commissioner out of the loop. If briefing notes were requested and parts of them had been blanked out, there was someone to appeal to before. This is no longer the case. One cannot even ask a court. It is one step forward and two steps back.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise on Bill C-58, and to go down this path once again on how we got to where we are today. To those in the gallery and those listening at home, it probably seems like we hit pause, rewind, then play, time and again. This debate is back again, and we will hear some of the same arguments we have had time and again.

I want to refresh, for those who are in the House today, as well as those listening, how we got to this point. I believe it was day 10 of the 2015 election campaign where the member for Papineau, now our Prime Minister, made a campaign pledge that, under his leadership, the Government of Canada would become the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. A mere two years later, we have slid backwards. Now we have a bill such as Bill C-58 that not just the media, but former information commissioners are saying is a step backward, a sign of decline in this government's transparency.

It is interesting. There are some things I will discuss along the way, and what do they have in common? What they have in common is that if access to information were not available, Canadians would not have found out about these issues. The access to information process is there.

Again, I will remind the House of why we are here. We seem to always have to remind our friends across the way, the government, that the House does not belong to them or to me. The House belongs to Canadians, those who elected us to be here, to be their voices, from the 338 ridings across Canada. We are here to deliver their voices to Ottawa, not the other way around.

If Canadians have questions about what the government is doing, access to information is a tool that the opposition and the media can use to find out some of the real answers. We get talking points but not a lot of answers during question period, and access to information allows us to dig deep and find some of the answers.

I will give a few examples that we have dealt with over the last two years. About a year ago, around this time, maybe a little later in the month, there was a holiday trip taken by our Prime Minister and his family. Again, I will be on record to say that I never begrudge anyone spending time with their family and going away and enjoying time. We work very hard. However, when the taxpayers pay for it, Canadians should know how much money is being spent. There are costs incurred along the way. The only way that the real costs of the Aga Khan trip were made public was through access to information. If Bill C-58 had been in place, would Canadians have found out what the costs had been, or that our Prime Minister perhaps had some bad advice along the way? He blames others, of course. It is not ever his mistake or problem, it is others who are giving him bad advice. Therefore, access to information has protected us there.

That same year, in 2016, we found out that another cabinet minister had a preferred choice of transportation when she was back in her riding. Again, the taxpayers were on the hook for that. It was a limo, or sedan, or whatever it was called, that we were talking about.

How did we find that out? How did Canadians find that out? It was through access to information.

The other one that came up was the government's plan to introduce a carbon tax. Many people, including experts who are in the field, said that the carbon tax would not be revenue neutral. It would be a cash grab, and even at $50 a tonne, it would not allow Canada to reach its target. How did we find that out? An internal departmental memo highlighted that for us.

If we listen to the talking points the ministers spew during question period, and indeed in their media scrums, everything is fine, and we should trust them, because they know what is best for us. However, when we dig deeper and have that opportunity to really look at some of the departmental information, we really get the truth.

Another one we have been dealing with over the last few weeks is the ethical conundrum the Minister of Finance finds himself in. The information that has come out is from the opposition a bit and from the public and the media that have done some digging, through access to information.

There is another one that came out. Shortly after the 2015 election, the Prime Minister was building his team and was perhaps moving some high-priced friends here to work in Ottawa. Moving here from Toronto, the GTA, would appear to be fairly expensive, because I believe the costs were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a couple of staff members. After that information came out and was made public, I think most members in the House, and perhaps the people in the gallery, will remember that some of those dollars were paid back, because the Liberals said they erred in their ways, or perhaps, as the finance minister has said in terms of some of his challenges, it was an administrative error.

I am going to use a very recent issue that has come to light. The Minister of National Revenue has denied, a lot, over the last couple of weeks that there have been changes to the diabetic tax credit, despite all the letters and the meetings we have had with constituents. On this side of the House, I believe all of the opposition is on the same page with this one. Diabetics right across Canada are having challenges getting their tax credit. However, despite this revenue minister standing up, banging her fist on the table, and vehemently denying that there has been any change, guess what? Through an access to information request, we have now found out that indeed a memo has gone out. Not only has it gone out within her department, it has gone out to other departments, letting them know that there were indeed some challenges and that this tax credit has changed.

If Bill C-58 was in place today, we would not know about those ideas and issues I just brought up. It would be great for the Prime Minister, his cabinet, and his team, because they would not have such long-looking faces on the backbench. It is not sunny ways across the way anymore. It is cloudy ways right across the front bench. The poor backbench and the parliamentary secretaries are having to come in and answer all the questions for the ministers. I think some of those parliamentary secretaries, not all of them, are really earning their keep, because they are having to answer these questions for these ministers who keep making these ethical mistakes. Only through access to information are Canadians really finding out about them.

For those who are tuning in, Bill C-58 is not really about opening up and being more open and transparent. As a matter of fact, it is a step backward. When the Prime Minister was campaigning, he said that his government would be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. Let us pump the brakes a little on that, because once he got in, once he had 39% of Canadians' votes, he changed that.

He said he was just kidding. He did not really expect to get in. They could not have Canadians knowing what they are doing or what their ministers are doing and that they are not going to have access to that.

Maybe they have made some amendments to Bill C-58 that are good, but they are failing Canadians on their biggest promise, which was to make the government more open and transparent, including the Prime Minister's Office and the cabinet ministers' offices. As it sits today, if Bill C-58 passed, the minister of a department could decide that a request was vexatious and frivolous. A minister could see that a media outlet or a member of Parliament or an opposition member had signed numerous access to information requests and could decide that perhaps he or she was unfairly targeting that department, so that minister would deny them.

That is unacceptable, because we are not here for ourselves. We are here for the Canadians who elected us. They are the electors in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George. I feel so fortunate to be here, and hopefully we have made them proud as we stand up every day and fight. We fight hard in delivering the voice of the Cariboo to Ottawa, not the other way around. I know that my constituents want us to make sure that we are fighting all the time, that we are holding the government accountable, and that it cannot do the unethical things it has done to this point.

The Liberals want to rush Bill C-58 in. I am sure that as we move forward, this is really a stopgap. I remind members that for the first time in Canadian history, we have a Prime Minister under investigation. We have a finance minister who has two investigations. I think there could be more coming down the wire.

Despite their standing up, hand on heart, saying that the finance minister has followed the letter of the law and what the Ethics Commissioner told him right from day one, we know that it is not true. I have not been up in question period very much on this. That is the job of other members of our team. If they had followed the Ethics Commissioner's rules, would the finance minister have two investigations going? Would he have been fined any money? Would he have been told, “You made a mistake”? He blamed it on an administrative error, saying, “Oops, I forgot my French villa.” I do not know about other people here, but if I had a French villa, I would not have forgotten about it.

That brings me to another point. When members of Parliament are elected, we all are held to a higher account. We all have to go through the same process. For the most part, that is right. In the mandate letters, the Prime Minister tasked his ministers to go above and beyond to withstand even the closest scrutiny. We all have to go through the steps and declare our assets and do what we have to do to satisfy the Ethics Commissioner's rules and guidelines. They are absolutely right about that, but ministers of the crown are actually held to a higher standard, especially those like the finance minister, which is perhaps one of the most powerful positions in Canada. It can influence markets through the policies the finance minister introduces. The Liberals say that he followed the letter of the law and always worked with the Ethics Commissioner. I think there is a bit of funny business going on, because if the minister had done that from day one, the Ethics Commissioner would not say that something does not smell right here and fine him. She only fined him a small amount, but she still fined him.

Essentially, he was found guilty, because he was fined for some form of unethical transgression--

[An hon. member]

Did he pay the fine?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

We are not sure if he paid the fine.

The Liberals always blame the governments that have come before them for all the issues they have. They claim that the Conservatives did this or that or that the NDP is just as bad. They are always blaming people. They never take full responsibility. The other thing they say is to trust them.

Members may remember last spring when the Minister of Justice was in Toronto meeting with some high-priced lawyers. There was a bit of a conundrum there. There were questions about whether she was there as a member of Parliament or there as the Minister of Justice who was looking to make some appointments. It was a pay-to-play event. The minister had to come before us. I do not think we got an apology.

My grandmother used to say if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.

There are some things we have seen over the last two years with the Liberal government that are just odd. Arrogance is one. We have a millionaire Prime Minister. I do not know whether our finance minister is a millionaire, a multi-millionaire, or a billionaire. Both are embroiled in some ethical scandals. That they sit there smugly is disappointing.

I know that there are good people on each side of the House. There are government members on the backbenches. When those two were up and the questions were going on, and it came up that the finance minister's father even sold shares at one point days before some legislation was tabled, we could see the members' faces. Oh no, not again. The reason Bill C-58 is so important and why the Liberals are rushing it is so Canadians cannot find that out. The government wants to shut it down. They want to pick and choose what Canadians see and hear. That is disappointing.

I am a first-term member of Parliament, and I have enjoyed every minute of my time here. There are great people on all sides of the House. One learns a lot from every member of Parliament. I really believe that members on the front bench of the government, cabinet members, have let the backbench down. They are the leaders within that caucus. We just heard one minister today make some terrible comments to some thalidomide victims. Time and again we see these missteps.

During the campaign, the Liberals said they were ready. They made promises. Let us talk about the one big promise they made. They said they were going to have only a $10-billion deficit. Where are we now with that? It is gone. It went right out the window. Does anyone remember their promise about electoral reform? That is another promise that is gone.

I have 29 seconds to go. I know I am going to get some great questions, because members opposite have been listening to me intently. I am ready for them.

Bill C-58 is not open and transparent. It is not sunny ways. It is cloudy ways. The cabinet and the Prime Minister are doing everything they can to slide back into a decade of darkness. They do not want Canadians to have the information they deserve.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Madam Speaker, I am puzzled by the discussion of the member for Cariboo—Prince George and that of his colleagues on the opposition benches today about bad legislation. We are here today to talk about great legislation. We are tabling great legislation that is wonderful for all Canadians.

However, while we are on the topic of bad legislation, perhaps my friend could tell us why the Conservative Party was able to pass over 250 pieces of legislation in a 10-year period, but somehow never got around to its 2006 campaign promise to address deficiencies in the Access to Information Act. Did the Conservatives run out of time perhaps or was it number 300 on their list of priorities? Maybe the member could explain his displeasure with the fact that we are finally getting around to a Conservative campaign promise.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is what I love about Liberals. The arrogance gets the best of them. What did I say in my speech? I said that the Liberals' argument was that the Conservatives did not get around to it, that the Conservatives did this or did not do that. That is exactly what they are doing now.

We are not here to talk about what we did and did not do. We are here to talk about the current government. The Liberals lied to Canadians during their election campaign. At the time, the member for Papineau campaigned on day 10 and said that his government would be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. He lied.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would remind the member that pointing out that somebody is lying is not parliamentary language. Nor is it acceptable.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

You are absolutely right, Madam Speaker. I should not have said he lied. Perhaps I should have said he misled Canadians.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, having heard the previous Liberal question about this great bill, I will ask the member about four snappy quotes.

The first is, “The proposed reforms are just not good enough,” which was said by Toby Mendel, the executive director of the Centre for Law and Democracy.

The second is, “The bill take a step backwards”, which was said by Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

The third is, “Bill C-58 would actually make the Access to Information Act more difficult to use”, which was said by Mark Weiler, a distinguished librarian at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Finally, Bill C-58 “would result in a regression of existing rights.” Who said that? The Information Commissioner.

In the hon. member's somewhat broad-ranging remarks, he expressed his discontent with the bill. However, the Conservatives did nothing in 10 years in power and did not even introduce any amendments at committee. Have you no faith at all in the Liberals' ability to accept amendments, or are you reverting back to your pattern of not acting on this?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would remind the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke to address the question through the Chair. I am sure he was not directing that question to the Chair.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thought we were doing so well with the NDP and the Conservatives pointing fingers squarely where they should be, which is across the way. We are stronger when we work together, and my hon. colleague should know that. I have the utmost respect for him, and he knows that.

I was not part of the previous Parliament, so far be it for me to stand here, make excuses, and talk of what was done and what was not. I do not sit on the committee that deals with this. However, from the experience I have had, whether it was the fisheries committee, the natural resources committee, or the indigenous affairs committee, when Liberals ask us to trust them and get it to committee, it is hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. They do not listen. The Liberals know best, apparently. They do not listen to people or the quotes that my hon. colleague read, including the one by the Information Commissioner. They do not want to listen to Canadians who say this is wrong. They definitely do not want to listen to the opposition.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat nice to see a bit of division between the unholy alliance at times. I listen to Conservative after Conservative speak. I think the Conservatives have their collective head in the sand here. They do not recognize a good thing when they actually see it. They are not in touch with what Canadians think on the issue of transparency and accountability, and I invite the member across the way to run some of these thoughts by his constituents. For example, how many of his constituents would oppose giving more power to the commissioner? How many of his constituents would oppose proactive disclosure?

I know the Conservative Party has reluctance on it, but at least when the Prime Minister was leader of the third party and when we first talked about proactive disclosure, it only took a couple of months for the Conservatives' lightbulb to turn on and say that it was a good idea. They ended up supporting it.

We do not have to wait two months; this is a good idea. I would suggest the member vote in favour of the legislation. His constituents would be proud.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, first, I would invite my hon. colleague to visit my riding. My constituents are quite disappointed in the Liberal government. They know full well that Bill C-58 is under the guise of ensuring the Liberal government, the Prime Minister, and his cabinet are not going to be open and transparent with Canadians.

There are some things that Bill C-58 captures, but the Liberals can already do that. They do not need Bill C-58 for those.

Bill C-58 is a present wrapped up with a shiny bow and all that stuff. The sole purpose of it is to ensure the ministers and the Prime Minister have a say in what is made public. That is it.

For the hon. colleague to stand, which he does every day and I welcome his comments, and say that this is more open and transparent and that my constituents would be very happy with it, I welcome him to come to my riding and we will meet with the constituents one on one.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned a good point. He talked about how the Liberal government had made much about this supposedly higher bar, about avoiding even the appearance of conflict of interest, about structuring affairs to bear the closest public scrutiny, and about ensuring that at all times it was held to the highest account. However, when caught, it always revert to the lowest bar possible and a denial that any rule has been broken.

Could the member comment on the hypocrisy between—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

A brief answer from the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, in fact, in the Liberals' campaign document, the second page states, “Together, we can restore a sense of trust in our democracy. Greater openness and transparency are fundamental to accomplishing this.” The next paragraph goes on to say, “Our objective is nothing less than making transparency a fundamental principle across the Government of Canada.” What a farce. As soon as the Liberals were elected, they said, “Just kidding” and it did not happen.

Bill C-58 definitely should go back and be rethought. All the Liberals are doing is shutting down debate and the information Canadians deserve.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

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 Banff—Airdrie, Taxation; the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay, Indigenous Affairs; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Natural Resources.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House when you are presiding.

I participated in the debate at second reading, hopeful that for once the government would be open to amendments. As I recall, the President of the Treasury Board promised they would be open to amendments. Regrettably, every amendment tabled by my colleague was rejected.

Why is that important? As the representative for the Conservative Party stated, great promises were made by the Liberals when they ran for office, a new world of openness and transparency and sunshine. What are they offering? Like many of the bills they have brought forward, they tell us not to worry, that they have not made those changes they promised, that in five years when we review the bill again, they will think about whether they will bring those forward. It is getting very tiresome.

It is time for the government to deliver on its promises and on requests by Canadians, by experts, and by its own commissioners to open access to information.

I have shared in the House that in my 40-plus years as an environmental advocate, I championed the cause for the rights of citizens to have a voice in environmental decision-making. Critical to that is having the opportunity to participate in the review of standards and the review of projects, policy, and trade deals. For the public to constructively participate, it is very critical they have ready access to information. The government has failed on that.

The Liberals have said that they will have a proactive disclosure, but then it is up to the government to decide what the public will receive. Yes, it would be nice if the government were more open with access to information, but let me give a concrete example of where it has abjectly failed to deliver on this promise.

We are in the middle of negotiations on a “modernized” NAFTA. Very late in the day, the government suddenly remembered it would have strong provisions for environment in any NAFTA deal, yet there is no environmental adviser to the foreign affairs minister who is negotiating the deal. To her credit, she has industry representatives and representatives from labour, but no representative with environmental expertise.

Very late in the day, at the eleventh hour, the environment minister established an advisory committee. We have no idea what role it is playing, whether its ideas are passed on to the negotiation table. We have no idea whatsoever what the government is proposing for environmental provisions in the NAFTA deal, unlike the Americans. We can criticize the Americans as much as want, but they tabled and made publicly available all the provisions they were intending to seek for environment in a negotiated trade deal. So much for openness and transparency.

Nothing in Bill C-58 will improve that, because the government has made its own decision that it will not disclose that information in advance to the public. To make matters worse, the Liberals issued a call for public comments on a revised NAFTA, when we did not even know what a revised NAFTA would say. I do not know what the outcome of the consultations were but I heard from a lot of Canadians who asked how they could comment on a trade deal when they did not even know what it would include. The Liberal Party's idea about open access to information and timeliness is a bit of Russian roulette.

Why is it important for Canadians to have access to information? From my perspective, as the environment and climate change critic and as an advocate for environmental rights for over 40 years, these are the kinds of things the public wants. They want to know in advance, before they are consulted, if they are consulted, what the planned routes are for pipelines. They want to know the locations of chemical plants before they are approved. They want information on the potential or known impacts of toxins on their health. That request was made very strongly by very many people who testified before our parliamentary committee.

The government has been in power now for over two years. What was one of the Liberals' big election promises? They promised they would immediately restore all federal environmental laws. Well, there is nothing stopping them from tabling today or tomorrow a revised Canadian Environmental Protection Act to extend these kinds of rights. We had a review by our committee with all kinds of recommendations to amend the act, but there has still been no action, and we will not hold our breath for a response.

We want to know about the safety of consumer products before they are made available for sale. Again, it is a specific request made by experts to our parliamentary committee. We are still waiting for action to make that information available. It is a vacuous offer to increase and improve access to information when, in fact, the Liberals bring forward a bill that provides very little.

As my colleague did, I will also share from the Information Commissioner's report on Bill C-58 entitled “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”, which reads:

In short, Bill C-58 fails to deliver.

The government promised the bill would ensure the Act applies to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ Offices appropriately. It does not.

The government promised the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. It does not.

The government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not.

Rather than advancing access to information rights, Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.

That is from the report of the Information Commissioner, and it is a scathing review, yet members of the government stand and defend the bill they have brought forward.

The bill could have been strengthened if the government finally delivered on the undertaking in this place by the President of the Treasury Board that he would welcome amendments to strengthen the bill, and yet the government refused every single amendment brought forward by my colleagues. This is not open and constructive government. It is not listening to experts. It is not listening to its own commissioners. It is not listening to the public.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member is giving an interesting speech, but I do not think there is quorum.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

We do have quorum now.

The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Conservative Party for getting a few more members to join us to hear my recommendations to strengthen the bill before us. Of course, we do not mention names in this place, but it is nice, and I can feel the room warming up already.

Where have the Liberals failed?

Well, there is no duty to document decision-making processes. The bill would allow information to be labelled as cabinet briefings to deny access. It would introduce yet more exceptions. It fails to require a harm test, which is a specific recommendation made by the parliamentary committee. It fails to prescribe in law an explicit public interest override, another recommendation by the parliamentary committee.

The Liberals are not willing to listen to the recommendations at committee. They are not willing to listen to the amendments brought forward. It really begs the question of why we work so hard in this place, why we diligently go through the bills, have witnesses come in, and make recommendations to strengthen the bills before us, because the government simply dispenses with them.

Therefore, it is with great sadness that, yet again, we have legislation tabled in this place that breaks an election promise. The Liberals have not provided sunshine and greater access to information for the public. They have not included what is most important of all. They say they are going to provide for proactive disclosure, but the best way to do that is to include provisions for whistle-blower protection. They have not done that, and so have put a cork in the mouths of their officers, who would otherwise readily disclose information to the public.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, obviously, I do not share the opinions of the member opposite. We made a commitment, and that commitment will be realized by the eventual passage of this legislation.

There is no question that the legislation includes measures that will allow for more accountability and transparency. When the member quotes individuals, I believe the quotes she cites date from before the amendments were made. Yes, there were no NDP amendments accepted, and the Conservatives did not offer any amendments, but the government does more than just listen to New Democrats and Conservatives. There are other stakeholders, and there were many amendments made to the legislation. Could the member tell us whether those quotes she just listed were before or after the amendments were made?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, there were no amendments made, so I have a hard time responding to the question. The hon. member says we did not list other people. How about Duff Conacher, the founder of Democracy Watch? How about Mark Weiler, web and user experience librarian? How about Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence for Democracy? They also gave scathing reviews of the bill.

If the government is not even willing to listen to the testimony of its Access to Information Commissioner, who is it willing to listen to? The Liberals made a big promise. They broke the promise. The President of the Treasury Board promised that he would be open to amendments and he rejected them all.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, many times in the House today we have heard increased rhetoric about more accountability, often referencing the mandate letters. I had an opportunity on a number of occasions to refer to the Minister of Finance's mandate letter, dated November 12, 2015. The very first bullet point of the letter the Prime Minister delivered to the finance minister says, “In particular, I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and Cabinet processes, including our first Budget, to deliver on your top priorities:”

The very first priority was to “Ensure that our fiscal plan is sustainable by meeting our fiscal anchors of balancing the budget in 2019/20 and continuing to reduce the federal debt-to-GDP ratio throughout our mandate.”

Balancing the budget in 2019-20 is a clear promise of the Liberal platform. It is clearly outlined in this mandate letter, yet we have often heard today how great these mandate letters have been. I wonder if my colleague would agree the mandate letters do not seem to be worth the paper they are written on.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, not speaking to the specific provision the member read from, I do recall that every single mandate letter stated that every member of cabinet would be accountable for greater openness and transparency and consultation with the public. I used to be on the transport committee. Now I am on the environment and sustainable development committee. It is the same requirement for both ministers. The government, because it has delivered a poor bill before us, is simply not delivering on that overall promise for greater sunshine in access to information.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, just to seek clarification, does the member opposite believe there were absolutely no amendments brought forward to the legislation?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do know they accepted one from another party, and it is my understanding that they rejected every single one from my party.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am going to speak to Bill C-58. Prior to its tabling, it offered a lot of promise to Canadians, who have been concerned for a long time about the access to information regime in Canada.

Unfortunately, I do not think my remarks will differ from those I made early on in the debate about Bill C-58 before it went to committee, because not a lot has changed substantially about the bill. We are still largely confronted with the same issues as when the bill was originally tabled.

The main point is a sense of lost opportunity. That is clear, not just to members of the NDP caucus, but to a lot stakeholders who have criticized the bill, as well as the stakeholders within the access to information community who testified at the access to information committee during what was a long and thorough study of Canada's access to information laws.

There have not been any real changes to the Access to Information Act since it was first brought introduced in 1983. I am sure that members of the House will appreciate that the way government does business has changed radically since 1983. If we think of the technologies that were available in 1983 versus the technologies available now, and the way those have become part and parcel of the way that government conducts its business, it is clear that reform of the access to information laws is necessary.

With changes being proposed to the laws, there was a great opportunity to address a number of problems. What were some of those problems? One of the important problems in my view is that cabinet ministers can say that whatever information is being requested falls under the purview of cabinet confidence. If it said to be advice to a minister, it cannot be touched. Fine, I think there is a legitimate space for some advice to ministers to be protected, except there is no ability for anyone, including the Information Commissioner, to assess whether that information has been denied properly, under the rubric of advice to ministers, or whether ministers were just making it up or saying that it was advice to ministers when it in fact it was not really advice to ministers.

Canadians must have confidence in the access to information system to know that when they are being told that something is advice to a minister and cannot be shared because it would hurt the public interest, this is true. I do not think we are in a situation in which Canadians have that confidence. I do not think Canadians had that kind of confidence in the last government, that is for sure, and I do not think Canadians have that kind of confidence in the current government.

Let us consider one of the important themes in question period for months now, indeed throughout the fall. It is about whether or not the Canada Revenue Agency made a deliberate decision to change its interpretation of a policy in order to deny the disability tax credit to people with diabetes. It turns out, as we found out this week, that in fact there was a memo circulated within the CRA back in May of this year that said very clearly that CRA staff who were evaluating those applications ought to err on the side of denying those applications, regardless of the advice of a physician or a nurse.

What has the minister said in the House? The minister has denied that a decision was made to this very day, despite the evidence that a decision was indeed made. What confidence can Canadians have in a system that might have allowed that minister to say that the memo was covered by a cabinet confidence? If she had invoked the exclusion, and I do not want to give them ideas, that would assume that the memo came through the access to information process. I am not sure that one did.

The point is that had someone made an access to information request and the minister's office had decided to call the memo an excluded document because it was advice to the minister or something else, no one would have been able to circle back and evaluate whether that was true or not. I think it is pretty clear that a memo to employees is not advice to a minister.

However, the point is that the Information Commissioner would not have been able to circle back, look at that document, and make an assessment as to whether or not that exclusion was rightfully applied. Canadians would still be in the dark about that very clear decision by the CRA to change the way it interprets its own policy.

While it is true for the minister to say that the policy on paper has not changed, it is misleading. Clearly, there was a directive given on how to interpret that same policy that radically changed the balance of acceptance and denial with respect to people with diabetes who are applying for that tax credit. That is the kind of thing that Canadians want to have access to and demonstrates why Canadians would want to know. Canadians want to know as it has a real and material effect for people who are living with diabetes, on their taxes, and what comes back to them from their tax return.

People also want to know because that document contradicts what the minister has been saying. They want to have that evidence and be able to follow through, to see if what the minister says is true and borne out within departmental directives.

One of the important things coming out of the study on access to information was the idea that an independent third party needs to verify a minister's use of that exclusion. Otherwise, it just becomes a huge blanket by which ministers can snuff out all sorts of information that would be politically inconvenient for them but important for Canadians to know and assess the government's performance. That is one of the ways that this legislation has failed.

Another obvious failure is with respect to the black and white commitment by the Liberal Party in the last election to have this apply to the PMO and ministers' offices. We did not make that up. It is not a partisan statement. That was a real commitment. It was part and parcel of the Prime Minister's own private member's legislation in the last Parliament. However, that is not in this legislation or something they chose to do.

Whether we think it is a good idea to have those things apply to the PMO or the ministers' offices, it was a very clear commitment of the Liberal Party that they would do so. The question is why is it not borne out in the legislation? They created a real mandate for openness and transparency and have the backing of Canadians, to the extent that they want the government to be more open and transparent.

They could have done a lot of things to help Canada be a model for openness and transparency. The problem is that is not what Bill C-58 delivers. It does not deliver that because it does not address serious problems that have come out of other jurisdictions.

It was in the news for some time that B.C. had an issue with documentation of government decisions that could be accessed through access to information. Government staff, and particularly political staff, responded by simply not documenting the outcomes of important meetings where decisions were made. That rightly created quite a stir. It was, and continues to be, a strong recommendation of the information commissioner that a legal duty to document needs to be established so that the political staff of ministers cannot get around accountability by not writing down the substance of important decisions made in private meetings. Eventually, it would be accessible under access to information. The government has not done that, and it is disappointing.

I do not want to sound naive or silly. When I first became a member of this House I was a member of the access to information committee and we had the President of the Treasury Board come a number of times. He repeated that one of the things he was looking forward to doing and glad that he had a mandate to do, was to change Canada's access to information laws. That was a real priority for him. He gave timelines, which he ignored.

Bill C-58 came much later than originally promised. When it did finally come, it did not honour what critics and stakeholders said we needed as an ideal access to information regime in Canada or the Liberals' own concrete, black and white election commitments. If that is what it means to be a priority of the Liberal government, Canadians should think twice about being on their priority list. There is a lot of other stuff being done that was promised in the last election. Those things are being done and this is not.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am somewhat hopeful that I might have a better chance of getting a response from my colleague from Winnipeg.

Many of the quotes that the New Democrats are using in their speaking lines are quotes that are actually from before the amendments were made, and there were a number of amendments made to the legislation that we are debating today. I was just looking for confirmation as to whether the NDP had the opportunity to update its speaking notes given the changes to the legislation.

Second, and what is important here, is in regard to the whole issue of proactive disclosure. What we see here is more proactive disclosure, whether it is ministers, the Prime Minister's Office, or departments. We are seeing a more empowered commissioner who would actually be able to request reports and get the reports. This is legislation that would ensure more transparency and accountability, as opposed to what the unholy alliance from across the way is saying. I wonder if the member across the way would at least acknowledge that with those changes there would be more accountability.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think proactive disclosure by ministers who decide what to proactively disclose, without any independent oversight or input from Canadians, is more accountability.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague from Winnipeg a very simple question. He alluded to it during his remarks of just a few moments ago. It seems that Canadians have been misled in the intentions of the Liberal government with its stated purpose of improving access to information when in fact, what we know now about the details of Bill C-58 demonstrates quite clearly that it is more difficult right now for the average Canadian to access information from the current government. I would like to hear my colleague expound a bit about why he thinks that is and what might be done to try to improve this badly flawed bill.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, maybe I will come back to this point about proactive disclosure because this is the sleight of hand that the government is trying to use. The Liberals are trying to say that Canadians are going to have more information because now the government is going to have proactive disclosure by ministers. Of course, the access to information regime is not about ministers deciding what they want to share with the public. Ministers have always been free to share that. In fact, they do not need to change the law to allow for proactive disclosure. Listening to the Liberals, one would think that somehow ministers have been prohibited from sharing any information they liked with the Canadian public up to now and thank God we have a Liberal government that is going to let ministers share their own information with the Canadian public as if that is what is needed, when it is clearly not.

Therefore, this whole thing is just a really rinky-dink talking point to try to cover over the fact that very clear commitments were made about improving the access to information regime before the election by the Liberals and after the election. They are trying to pretend that somehow ministers were being gagged by anyone other than maybe the PMO, although it is not like this would allow ministers to release information that the PMO does not want released because presumably the PMO is going to have something to say about what information those ministers release. If they somehow were protecting ministers from the oversight of the PMO in terms of the information they want to release, that might get to be an interesting legislative fix, but of course, that is not what it is.

Therefore, the Liberals' whole centrepiece of this legislation is proactive disclosure. It is a solution to a problem that did not exist and they want to talk about that instead of talking about the commitments that they did want to talk about just two years ago when they were running to be government, criticizing the previous government for its culture. We have heard critics of the bill who were involved in the access to information community say that actually this would make things worse. Now we have an access to information bill passed in 1983, the year before I was born, people calling for change because they want to make it better, and we have a bill that is actually going to make it worse.

We have a 30-year-old bill that needed to be changed, not for the worse but for the better, and now we are passing up that opportunity, for reasons unknown. This whole talk about proactive disclosure, as if somehow that is a substitute for meaningful reform, is just ridiculous.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague from Edmonton West.

All through today's debate, I kept reflecting on an old proverb that we have all heard many times before, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The government at one point in time actually had some good intentions about reforming the Access to Information Act. At one time, the Liberals might have been genuine when they said they wanted to improve the Access to Information Act, but somewhere along the line on that road, something went terribly wrong because the bill we have before us now, Bill C-58, is far more regressive and prohibitive to Canadians seeking to access the government's information than any access to information bill before its time.

I should say at the outset that I believe that over the last 34 years, ATIPs have proven to be extremely helpful to Canadians. Clearly they have been helpful to politicians who are trying to find out more information about the government of the day, particularly opposition politicians. These access to information requests have also been extremely helpful to journalists, because we have seen over the last number of years journalists break stories about some unethical action of the government of the day. Has that improved the ability of Canadians to learn more about their government? It certainly has.

Now Bill C-58 tends to want to reverse some of the strides that may have been made over the past several years. One of those strides was made by our government, when we were in power, to reduce the amount of money it cost the average Canadian to file an access to information request. We reduced that to $5, meaning that any Canadian who wanted to get more information about a government department could fill out a form and with only a $5 fee, receive an answer from the government department they were querying. That was a good thing and one of the things that helped Canadians become more comfortable with their own government.

However, ATIPs have been invaluable not just to Canadians, to politicians, and to journalists, but also to society as a whole because they have allowed Canadians to learn more about their government in a fashion that gives them confidence in the government of the day. We know of many ATIPs that have been successful and have been newsworthy. The one that most Canadians recall was the sponsorship scandal. It is ironic that we are debating Bill C-58 today, because the sponsor of the bill was, in the early 2000s, a minister in the Liberal cabinet, I believe as minister of public works, who day after day during question period had to stand and defend his government against opposition attacks as we found out more information from the Gomery commission and its investigation.

I recall vividly, as some of my colleague will too, the minister of the then public works department standing and saying in response to opposition questions, “Let Justice Gomery do his work.” That was his standard talking point. He would not answer any direct questions. He would simply say let Justice Gomery do his work. At the end of the day, Justice Gomery did fine work because he exposed the ethical shortcomings of the Liberal government of the day. He exposed the rampant corruption within that government and, frankly, the stench of that corruption stays with me today because I recall how the government abused the trust of the Canadian people when it came to the sponsorship scandal, particularly how Liberal ministers ignored the very fact that their own party operatives were charging for work that was never done and pocketing the money themselves, to benefit themselves financially.

How did we find out about that corruption? It was through an ATIP, through one reporter, Daniel Leblanc, who studiously examined what he thought was a corrupt system in the Quebec government of the day and started asking questions.

Finally, his request for information was answered. That was the start of the sponsorship scandal.

The point I make today is simply this. If the changes proposed by the government on Bill C-58 are enacted, reporters like Daniel Leblanc and others who expose such clear wrongdoing by the government would be the unable to access that information. That is simply wrong. That should never be allowed to happen. Any government, whether it be a Liberal government, a Conservative government, a New Democratic government, or any government in this country, should not be allowed to deny access to Canadians about information of their government.

We all know that governments are a servant of the people. We serve the public. We are supposed to be serving the public's interest. The public's interest in this case will be denied simply because we have a government that is embarrassed about some of its previous ethical lapses and frankly wants to cover them up. I can only point to the most recent example of what might happen if Bill C-58 is passed in its current form, and that is with the most ethical transgressions by the Minister of Finance.

We know now, thanks to an ATIP from reporters at The Globe and Mail, what the current Minister of Finance was hiding from Canadians and from the Ethics Commissioner. We know now, thanks to an ATIP, that the current Minister of Finance had a villa in France that he did not disclose to the Ethics Commissioner for two years, a villa that we can only assume is worth in the millions of dollars because of its locale in one of the wealthier regions of southern France.

We know now, because of an ATIP, that the same Minister of Finance had a numbered company in Alberta that was not disclosed to the Ethics Commissioner. It contained approximately $20 million in shares in a company called Morneau Shepell, which the Minister of Finance formerly used to run, a family-founded, family-run, very successful company, that had obvious direct ties to the Minister of Finance. We know that now, because reporters, journalists, requested access to information that uncovered those ethical transgressions.

If Bill C-58 is adopted, those opportunities will be lost. That should not be allowed to happen. Governments must be accountable for their actions. Governments must be accountable to the public. One of the ways to ensure that it is accountable is by allowing the public, whether it be opposition politicians, journalists, or advocacy groups, to gain information from their government without fear of retribution and without fear of censorship.

Bill C-58 is so desperately flawed that Canadians who have been examining this legislation and listening to this debate must feel that they have no more confidence in the government. In fact, what Bill C-58 does is to make information unavailable to Canadians should the government determine that it does not want to release what it considers to be sensitive information. That is right. It is not up to the government to release information upon request. The government feels that it is within its purview to deny information if it feels it might embarrass them, if it feels that the information is not in its best political interest. That is not only shameful, it is offensive, and should not be allowed to happen.

I know that my comments are falling on deaf ears when it comes to speaking to members opposite, but I beseech them to reconsider this flawed bill, take it back to the starting board, and if it truly wants to make access to information a reality, redraft and redraw this bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I do not necessarily need a lecture from the member opposite on the importance of access to information. I sat in opposition for over 20 years. I can appreciate the importance of access to information. This bill will in fact ensure that opposition members, along with other Canadians, news agencies, and so forth, will have more tools to get more information. They will not have to request as much information, because some of it will be proactively released.

I thought it was interesting that the member opposite talked about the Minister of Finance and misinformation. The Conservatives continuously attempt to say that. They talk about a villa. What they are really talking about is a house. There is a house in France, but I guess “villa” sounds better. The Conservatives want to put that kind of a spin on it. They say that it was not declared, which is not true. It was declared. That is the truth. It was declared weeks after the election, not two years later. He is reading from speaking notes, but he needs to understand that the reality is different than the Conservatives' spin on the issue. Access to information should not be used to foster misinformation, which is what we are seeing in some of these speeches. My question is why?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, once again, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is trying to defend the indefensible. The reality is that contained in Bill C-58 is a provision that states the government determines whether or not it will give answers to an access to information request, and in what form. If the government feels that the request is either vexatious, frivolous, or made in bad faith, it does not have to answer. If it does answer, it can redact as much of the information that it feels is necessary. That is not true access to information, that is censorship. The member opposite knows it, and his government knows it. Shame on them for bringing forth a bill that is so regressive that most Canadians, should they understand the content of this bill, would rebel. I again ask the Liberals to do what is right for once in their lives, and to bring this bill back to the drawing board and redraft it. It needs a complete rework and overhaul.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan and I worked together on the government operations committee to put together a report on whistle-blower protection in the federal public service. We heard harrowing stories about public servants enduring hardships and taking risks to blow the whistle and release information to the public. It struck me that if we had a stronger access to information system, where citizens could obtain information that the government does not want to divulge, there would be far less need for our brave public servants to take those risks. I wonder if the member for Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan would care to reflect on that observation as well.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and friend from Regina—Lewvan is quite right. He and I, and my colleague from Edmonton West, sit on the government operations committee. We heard compelling testimony from whistle-blowers who felt they were being let down by their government because the information they would bring forward to expose wrongdoing within the government was falling on deaf ears. In fact, it was even worse. Sometimes they came with stories about being punished for bringing forward these legitimate exposés of government wrongdoing, and in some cases outright corruption.

Will changes in Bill C-58 help or hinder those who expose wrongdoing in the government? Quite clearly, it would hinder the ability of public servants to come forward. That is just one of many examples I can put forward in this place to demonstrate quite clearly how flawed Bill C-58 actually is.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, a lovely resort town, for sharing his time with me. W.C. Fields was famous for his comment about not wanting to work with children and animals because they showed him up. Following his speech, I feel the same way.

I am pleased to speak on Bill C-58 today, which would amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. I also call it another broken Liberal promise hidden behind talking points peppered with key words like “open by default”, “transparency”, “historic”, and “whole of government”, but that is just the working title. I threw in “whole of government”, because Liberals use that for every other bill, so I figured why not this one as well.

The last time I spoke about this bill, I mentioned how it demonstrates the lofty rhetoric of the 2015 campaign on the Liberals' plan for openness, transparency, and accountability, and it 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 with this bill.

The Liberals defended their poorly thought-out bill by saying they were open to amendments. The Treasury Board president appeared before committee and repeated his intention a few times, and then realized that repeating this again and again does not make it true, much like “open by default”. It is shameful that the Liberals continue to talk about being open to amending their terrible legislation, but when the opportunity presents itself to make decent changes, the Liberals almost always shut them down.

This bill has been roundly ridiculed by experts, and what is the Treasury Board president's defence? He likes to say this is the first reform in over 34 years. This is a laughable excuse. One cannot defend bad actions by saying that at least it is an action, but that is the minister's key talking point. It is a lot like the executives of Coca-Cola sitting around an office table, talking about the recipe for Coke, and saying they have not amended it for 35 years or 100 years, so rather than broadly consulting for modifications to the formula, they launch an entirely new brand. Some of my colleagues in the House do not remember new Coke, but I can speak from experience that it did not work out very well.

The minister goes on about the virtues of his work by saying that, for the first time, Liberals are making government open by default, except that they are limiting it to sanitized briefing books and mandate letters that even the Liberal government has shown no intention of following. When faced with public outcry over their ruthless willingness to abandon their principles and promises in favour of whatever is politically convenient, the Liberals refuse to own up to their shameless actions with openness and transparency, but rather, mislead, re-profile, re-label, or try to change the story.

The minister then repeatedly touts the new powers given to the Information Commissioner. He repeats this point so often because it is probably the only positive point of the bill. The minister seems to have stopped listening after that point, and conveniently forgets that the commissioner herself is one of the harshest critics of the bill. Specifically, she said:

After studying the Bill, I have concluded that the proposed amendments to the Access to Information Act will not advance government transparency. The proposed Bill fails to deliver on the government’s promises. If passed, it would result in a regression of existing rights.

That statement is on her website, plain for everyone to see. Perhaps the minister should read it.

The person charged with carrying out and overseeing access to information considers this bill “regressive”, but like many things, because the commissioner's statement is counter to the Liberal message of the day, she does not need to be listened to, it seems. This is ironic. In defending their unending parade of scandals to members in this place, the Liberals claim to hold independent officers of Parliament in the highest regard. I can think of nothing more disrespectful than claiming to agree with the Information Commissioner, but then ignoring her thoughts on this disastrous legislation.

Let us talk about some of the problems with the current system. Timely access to information is key to a well-functioning democracy. 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 would not prevent requests from taking months or even years to be completed, but, amazingly enough, enables the process to take even longer.

I am an avid user of the Access to Information Act. In the two years since being elected, I have submitted over 60 ATIP requests. Take my word for it when I say that the Liberal government is unbearably slow in responding to ATIP requests. As I mentioned, since elected, I have filed over 60 requests, and only half of them have been completed. Some were filed in March of 2016 and remain outstanding over 20 months later.

I am now coming up to my second anniversary of this outstanding ATIP, and apparently cotton is the gift for second anniversaries. I am out looking for something to celebrate the two years outstanding for that ATIP.

Other requests include October 19, 2016, 18 months outstanding; September 2, 2016, 14 months outstanding; two filed at the very beginning of this year, almost a year old now; and April 6, 2017, 10 months outstanding. We also have over 24 ATIPs outstanding that were filed over half a year ago. For reference, I gave the same numbers the first time I spoke to Bill C-58 back in September. My office has not received a single one of them back yet.

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

What is the government's response to this? It wants to give heads of government institutions the ability to decline requests on the basis they are vexatious or made in bad faith. Who is going to define vexatious? Who is going to ensure 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 the public needs to know, such as our ATIPs on the Phoenix issue, which showed very clearly that the government was told two months before it pulled the trigger on Phoenix to clear the backlog before going ahead, 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 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 access to information, we would not have found this.

We asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board if ministers would be able to decline requests using the same clause. She said that she could not confirm that ministers would not have that power. This is ridiculous. Apparently, the government itself is stating that it will decide what is vexatious. I have no doubt it will use these new, poorly defined, and inadequately described powers to declare as much as it can to be vexatious or in bad faith.

“Never fear”, the Liberals would say. If a person disagrees with the Liberal denial, he or she can appeal to the commissioner or go to the courts. However, as we have heard repeatedly in this place, the court system is so bogged down with cases and understaffed by qualified judges, almost exclusively because the government is unwilling or unable to fill these roles. Because of that, we are now letting accused murderers off the hook. Imagine how tied up our courts will be when we add in all the appeals on DWI because of impairment for pot. We know we do not have a valid and proper way to measure impairment.

My point is that the system of denial, appeal, denial, appeal could take a process, which already takes upward of 18 months or more and counting, two years. It could take three years or perhaps four years. The beauty of the legislation for the government is that there is no upper limit on the timelessness. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the public and opposition do not see beauty in this.

The government claims that it is ensuring it is open by default, and we know this is patently false. Open by default would include setting an upper limit, which the government would then release the requested information. This legislation ensures that the government can continue moving the upper limit as long as is politically convenient.

The Liberal government talks about all the published mandate letters. How does publishing mandate letters force the government to keep its promises? We remember the mandate letters referring to debt and deficit. 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. The promise to complete an open competition for fighter jets was blown off.

There is one mandate the minister can keep, which is to perhaps mess up the procurement, create a trade fight with Boeing and the U.S., and then further subsidize Bombardier.

What about the promise to modify the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act? That is also in the Treasury Board's mandate letter, and is also a failure.

John Ivison from the National Post sums it up very well. He said, “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.”

This is it. Apart from a few minor amendments, the legislation has done nothing to meet the campaign promise of the Liberals.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am so glad that the member raised Phoenix, because this is an issue that I hear about quite a bit during question period. The member talked about how the government was warned not to push the button. The truth of matter is that the Conservatives fired 700 compensation advisers who used to do that work. The path was set. There was no option to go back by the time the current Liberal government came along and took over the disaster of a program that the former government had set up.

I would also like to reference the member's comments about Coca-Cola and that “if it ain't broke don't fix it”. The difference between Coke and new Coke is that Coke was already a great product. It had been around for many decades.

Is the member suggesting that the existing policy that has been around for decades is also a great policy and should be the benchmark we use by today's standards of information?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I can probably say that no one in the House knows more about Phoenix, unfortunately, than me, and perhaps my colleague for Regina—Lewvan. We have looked at this inside and out, and I have gone over probably 2,000 pages of ATIPs.

The government was told in advance not to go because the training was not done. We were told in advance to clear the backlog before we go and for the government not to do it. We were told in advance to do the training, but the government did not do that. On the issue about the terminating, we asked the minister and the previous minister how many of these employees were fired or terminated after October 2015. It was actually several hundred. Why were they laid off, if the government knew it was such a problem? Crickets, absolute crickets.

We asked the current minister that, and perhaps my colleague across the way wants to stick to “crickets” for his answer, instead of his accusations.

On the member's second point about the access to information law, the President of the Treasury Board stood up and said what a great job the Liberals have done and that it has been 35 years since the last time it happened. Sure, but the experts say it is horrible. The commissioner herself said that it is regressive and that the former government was a lot more open than the current government.

But, hey, it has been 35 years, and good on them for doing nothing. The Liberals can congratulate themselves for a great job of doing nothing.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have to say that it is good to have the Conservatives onside in opposing Bill C-58, which rolls back access to information and would do nothing to eliminate delays.

However, being the festive season and to be charitable, I will say that the member for Edmonton West was not here in Parliament from 2006 to 2015 when the Conservative government did not take this issue seriously and did nothing to improve it. I know that the member was not here in 2011 when the Harper government got the lowest mark possible from Canadian journalists for free expression on access to information, which was an F.

I am being charitable to the member, because he was not here. I am glad to have the Conservatives onside, in some kind of conversion on the road to opposition from the Conservatives here, but, in this Parliament, if the bill is so bad, why did the Conservatives present zero amendments in committee?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I had sat on that committee. It would perhaps have given me a break from explaining all the issues on Phoenix which the Liberals have inflicted on Canadians. I was not part of the committee, and I was not aware, but very clearly presenting amendments, just like the NDP did, would have had absolutely no effect. The minister made it very clear from the beginning that this was the world's greatest proposed law, which would bring in changes to access to information. The government would brook no advice or changes from anyone else. Why we did not, I am not sure, but it would have made no difference.

However, another colleague talked about the whistle-blower act. My party, together with the NDP and Liberals in the government operations committee, put through a unanimous report to protect whistle-blowers, presenting a lot of great suggestions on how we can make amendments and legislative changes to improve it. However, the same President of the Treasury Board, who shot down all the amendments in the committee on Bill C-58, took the whistle-blower suggestions and put them in the dustbin with all the other great amendments that were suggested by the NDP and other parties on the Access to Information Act.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to once again speak to Bill C-58, but it is a bit disappointing to have to make some of the same criticisms of it that we on the opposition side have been making throughout. Notwithstanding some of the comments we have heard from the government, the bill actually has not been significantly amended and many of the original problems with it persist.

I would like to address this legislation in terms of three headings: first, the scope of the act; second, exceptions to the act; and third, the difference between proactive disclosure and access to information.

In terms of the scope of the bill, it is important to note that the Liberals were elected on a promise to extend access to information to the Prime Minister's Office and to the offices of other cabinet ministers. Bill C-58 would not do that. It is really part of a litany of broken promises by the government. Here we think of electoral reform. We think of the promise to close the stock option tax loophole. We think of the promise to restore door-to-door mail delivery. The government is building up quite a track record of broken promises and, unfortunately, the commitment to extend access to information to cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, is another one of those broken promises.

I had an opportunity at the committee on access to information, privacy and ethics to ask the Privacy Commissioner whether there were any privacy reasons that the government could not extend access to information to those cabinet offices. He confirmed that there were no such privacy reasons and that as far he was concerned, it would have been and would be feasible to extend access to information to the offices of cabinet ministers. Our first major disappointment with the scope of the bill is the fact that it fails to extend access to information to the very cabinet offices the government promised to include.

The second heading I would like to address is exceptions to the act. There are already exceptions related to cabinet confidences and policy advice to ministers. These exceptions have proven to be quite troublesome, because it is easy for the government to define almost anything as policy advice to a minister or as somehow being subject to a cabinet confidence. It is a very broad-sweeping exception that the government can use to not disclose information. Unfortunately, Bill C-58 would not correct this exception.

The really bad thing about Bill C-58 is that it creates new exceptions that would allow the government to not disclose information that citizens are requesting. In particular, it empowers the government to deem that an access to information request is frivolous or in bad faith. It is difficult to put government officials in the position of having to try to define the motivations of people making access to information requests. This is a very poor criterion on which to accept or deny access to information requests.

What is this really all about? The example we heard from a couple of different government members throughout this debate is the case of “an ex-spouse [who] ATIPs his or her former spouse's work hours on a daily basis or their emails”. There is obviously a problem with that type of request, but the way to respond to that is through proper protections of privacy, not by deeming the request itself to be frivolous or in bad faith. It is obviously the case that the government cannot disclose certain information for privacy reasons, and the privacy protections need to be very robust in federal legislation.

However, the idea of protecting privacy is not a justification for giving the government broad, sweeping powers to deem that particular access to information requests are frivolous or in bad faith. We do need to have proper protections for privacy, but those in no way justify the new exceptions introduced in Bill C-58, which try to get into the motivation behind an access to information request, which is a very difficult thing for the government to ascertain, and a very difficult thing for citizens to trust the government to ascertain in an objective and proper way.

The third aspect of the legislation that I would like to address is the difference between proactive disclosure on the one hand and access to information on the other hand, because of course one of the aspects of Bill C-58, which the government touts, is the notion of increased proactive disclosure. We have the idea, for example, that the government will proactively disclose ministerial briefing books. A cynic might suggest that this provision will to result in government officials and ministers' assistants spending time drafting briefing books for public consumption. Knowing they will be proactively disclosed, they will just prepare documents that they are happy to have disclosed and that do not really contain a lot of sensitive or controversial information. We are very concerned about that, but even if we assume that would not happen and that everything would be done entirely in good faith, we still have to face up to the fact that proactive disclosure, as positive as it might be, is no substitute for access to information.

Proactive disclosure is about the government choosing to disclose certain things. On the whole, it is good for the government to proactively disclose more documents, but access to information is fundamentally about citizens being able to request information that the government does not want to disclose and does not think it should have to disclose. There is a very important distinction to be made here between proactive disclosure, which is a good thing and the government is touting, and access to information, which is what the bill is supposed to be about.

To sum it all up, I would like to conclude by reading a quote from the Information Commissioner's report on Bill C-58 entitled “Failing to Strike the Right Balance for Transparency”. She said:

In short, Bill C-58 fails to deliver. The government promised the bill would ensure the Act applies to the Prime Minister's and Ministers' Offices appropriately. It does not.

The government promised the bill would apply appropriately to administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts. It does not.

The government promised the bill would empower the Information Commissioner to order the release of government information. It does not.

Rather than advancing access to information rights, Bill C-58 would instead result in a regression of existing rights.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 5:45 p.m., pursuant to the order made earlier today, the question on the motion is deemed to have been put and a recorded division deemed demanded and deferred until Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from December 5 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.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

It being 3:13 p.m., pursuant to order made Tuesday, December 5, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-58.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #432

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find unanimous consent of the House to adopt the following motion: That, in the opinion of this House, in keeping with the declaration signed by over 100 prominent figures and companies in Quebec, the government cannot allow foreign giants to avoid the taxes that all Canadian companies must charge, that it must right this injustice, which penalizes our cultural businesses, our artists, our artisans, and our workers, and that it has a duty to protect Quebec and Canadian culture.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded division, government orders will be extended by eight minutes.