Bill C-58 (Historical)

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

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

Access to Information Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

As this is not in the realm of debate, I will refer back to the parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows quite well that it is not a valid point of order. Trying to attempt to change the topic is not going to stop me from telling the truth as to what actually took place. I know that the member across the way might be a little sore, because we remember that it was the leader of the Liberal Party back then that mandated that all Liberal MPs participate in proactive disclosure. As a party, we dedicated the resources to ensure that it would be the case.

A couple of months later, the Conservatives saw the light and agreed that because the Liberals were now doing it, maybe they should be doing it too. They succumbed to public pressure, or common sense, as we would like to think, and we had the Conservatives agree that they would buy into proactive disclosure. We were grateful at the time.

Our New Democratic friends, on the other hand, needed a little more persuasion. A number of months went by, and we introduced an opposition motion, which the government of the day supported. The Conservatives and the Liberals were onside. The NDP did not want to be the odd ones out, so its members supported it. We are grateful. Today we have proactive disclosure for members of Parliament. We saw that as a positive thing. Today the constituents we represent can, through the Internet, find out where or how much individual MPs are spending through proactive disclosure. Again, we see that as positive.

Bringing it forward to today, we are talking about an expansion of proactive disclosure. The leader of the Liberal Party back then suggested that we have proactive disclosure for MPs. It took a while, but eventually, opposition parties and the government of the day agreed, and we were able to implement it. Now we have the Prime Minister, through the minister, talking about expanding proactive disclosure.

There are a number of parliamentary groups that will have to participate in proactive disclosure: the Library of Parliament; the parliamentary budget officer; the Parliamentary Protection Service; the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner; the office of the Senate Ethics Officer; the administration of the House of Commons, including the Board of Internal Economy; the office of the Speaker of the House of Commons; the administration of the Senate, including the standing committee on internal economy; and the office of the Speaker of the Senate.

This would be legislated proactive disclosure for institutions that support Parliament.

When we think of the benefits of proactive disclosure, there is the natural benefit, the one that is the most visual of them all, and that is that people can now click into the Internet and garner information that was not there before. That is a direct benefit.

One of many indirect benefits would be that people would no longer have to put in a request, an ATIP. I would suggest that hundreds, if not thousands, of ATIPs would become redundant. They would not be necessary because of this legislation. I see that as a strong positive, because prior to our having proactive disclosure, when it came to members of Parliament, we had to ATIP the information. If we did not like the information, we could appeal it. It would take weeks, in some cases months, before we might get the answer.

Now what we see is a more all-encompassing approach to dealing with proactive disclosure. Why would the opposition not acknowledge that as a benefit, because that is something this legislation would do.

I started by talking about how important it is that we recognize the need for change. Liberals talked a lot about real change in the last election, and this is yet another piece of legislation that would implement real change. I highlighted one aspect and hope to highlight more, but I can say that this is the type of legislation that was meant when we talked about real change.

For example, the commissioner would now have order-making power for information. What does that mean? Today, the commissioner, on receiving an appeal and looking into a matter, might make the suggestion that the information should be made available, and that is the way it has been for decades. For the first time, we would now have legislation that would enable the commissioner to order that the information be released. There are all sorts of things that might have to be taken into consideration, which I will get back to in a moment, but that is an example of real change, in a micro way, in one piece of legislation that we have put forward. It is something that I would think opposition members would see as a very strong positive, and I question why they would not want to support it.

For well over 30 years, we have had ATIP legislation. This is the first time that there has been any real, substantial change to the legislation. Within two years of being in government, we have a cabinet and a caucus on this side of the House that is prepared to debate this legislation, ultimately send it to committee, and pass it, because we recognize there is a need to modernize and we are not scared to modernize legislation. When the opportunity is there, we are interested in doing that. This is something our Prime Minister talked about in the last election. He said that we want to modernize.

To modernize does not necessarily mean to say that it is absolutely 100% perfect. It is one of the reasons we have standing committees. However, I give full credit where full credit is due and I compliment the minister responsible for the hard work done thus far in presenting the legislation and my caucus colleagues for recognizing how important this legislation is. That is the reason the minister has the support to advance it even further.

We talked about the legislation sitting on our books for decades with no substantial change, no modernization. Now we mandate in the legislation that every four or five years it would be up for legislative review.

I have heard some concerns from across the way, to which there could be a lot of validity. I am not going to discredit the ideas in some of the comments made by my colleagues across the way, but I also recognize that there are two things one should take into consideration. One is that this government has demonstrated time and time again that if a member has done the research and the work and has come up with a good idea at committee stage, the committee has the ability to advance changes to the legislation. That is very important to highlight. When I sat in opposition, it was very rare. In fact, I do not think any opposition member actually got an amendment passed. The same cannot be said about this government. We recognize good ideas that can improve the legislation, and that is one aspect that members across the way might want to consider.

The other consideration is, of course, that every four or five years this legislation will come up for a legislative review. When we look at that, we realize that we have a government that is committed to the ongoing needs of modernizing this piece of legislation.

Why is this legislation so important to this government? I would argue that the primary reason is that the government believes in accountability. It believes in transparency. This is something that is not new, particularly to the Prime Minister. Virtually within days, if not weeks, of becoming the leader of the Liberal Party, he was advocating for more accountability on the types of issues we are debating with respect to this particular piece of legislation.

I hear the criticisms from across the way. I can assure members that when they look at the election platform, they will find within this legislation a genuine attempt to deliver on something that was important to all candidates, because these are the types of things that we talked about at the door. We wanted to ensure that there would be more accountability. However, that does not mean we are going to stop here. There are always opportunities going forward.

I will reinforce one of the things I made reference to in the past. I like it when I hear our Prime Minister talking about the importance of representing our constituents in our communities here in Ottawa, whether it is inside this chamber, in standing committees, or in our respective caucuses. On the Liberal benches, we take that quite seriously. At the end of the day, ideas and thoughts that are generated and talked about do, somehow, in some form, make others aware of what is happening in communities across the country.

I want to highlight one of the greatest strengths of this legislation. It is the order-making power for the Information Commissioner. I believe that is a significant aspect of the legislation. It gives the Information Commissioner the power to issue orders in relation to complaints under section 30 of the ATI Act, with the exception of some of the clauses.

Order-making power will not apply to self-initiated complaints under subsection 30(3). It provides the commissioner with the discretion to make orders in relation to disclosure of records after the commissioner has investigated a complaint and determined it was well founded. It provides that orders issued by the commissioner will not take effect for 30 days.

Members across the way have been asking about the Prime Minister's office and about influence within the Prime Minister's office. In terms of what the legislation is doing within the Prime Minister's office, it is important that we look at the requirements with respect to proactive disclosure, mandate letters, and revised mandate letters for the ministers. I really thought that was a fantastic initiative by our current Prime Minister.

When the Prime Minister first announced the cabinet and provided the mandate letters, it gave a clear sense of what all Canadians could expect of the Government of Canada's cabinet. I see that as a very strong positive. Now we would have briefing packages for incoming ministers, titles and tracking numbers of briefing notes for ministers, question period binders as prepared by the departments, and travel and hospitality expenses for ministers and exempt staff.

I am really happy with that. I can recall that during the proactive disclosure debate when I was in the third party, there was the idea that not only should we be having proactive disclosure for individual members but that it should be extended to include the cabinet of the Harper government.

There is so much more to talk about. I always appreciate the privilege of being able to rise and share a few thoughts.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg is very enthusiastic today, but I am sure that there is no link between his enthusiasm today and the last poll.

The member said many times that we did absolutely nothing when we were in office. First, that is not true. More than that, let me read a quote from Suzanne Legault, who was Information Commissioner of Canada. She said this on December 4, 2014:

Over the years, I have also made recommendations to the President of the Treasury Board on various ways to advance accountability and transparency. I am very pleased that most of these recommendations over the years have been implemented by the government.

Why can the hon. member, with his 20 years of experience, not see the truth in the House?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, when it comes to polls, I let the professionals or dogs deal with them.

I think it is important to recognize that we have had this legislation for over 30 years, and these would be the first substantial changes. Yes, there have been some modifications over the years, some tinkering, but this is the first time we have seen substantial changes to the legislation. The good news is that within these changes is the requirement for the legislation to come before the House for review on a much more regular basis. It has been 30-plus years, and there has been modernization in the form of the Internet. When this legislation first came into being, the Internet was not around. At least, no one could actually use the Internet; it might have been usable in some space field.

Times have changed, and far too much time has gone by. The changes that we are debating today are long overdue.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as usual when the member for Winnipeg North gets up to speak, many things are said, some more relevant to the subject matter than others. I want to address some of the member's more relevant comments, which, in my view, were the ones around proactive disclosure. I just note that even those are a bit of a non sequitur, because of course there is no law prohibiting the government from proactively disclosing any information that it wants. The point of laws on access to information is for citizens to be able to get information that the government does not want to release.

I was on the access to information, privacy and ethics committee when we did a comprehensive review of the access to information laws. We made a number of recommendations. It was a unanimous report by the committee, but the lion's share of those recommendations is not in here. It is, frankly, a little misleading of the government to be touting the benefits of the proactive disclosure provisions within this legislation. It is to distract people from the fact that on the real substance of the matter, when it comes to access to information so that citizens can get information the government does not want to share, there is actually very little in this legislation.

I invite the member to stop trying to make the debate about proactive disclosure and to address the recommendations of the committee. He mentioned one recommendation, order-making power, that is in the legislation. That is a good thing that the committee recommended. However, we also talked a lot in the committee proceedings about the need to get rid of exclusions from the access to information laws, because when certain types of information, such as cabinet confidences, are subject to exclusions rather than exemptions, it means that the Information Commissioner cannot review whether that information was rightly not passed on to citizens who would want it. An exemption would allow the Information Commissioner to confidentially review the material and then make a decision as to whether the government appropriately withheld that information.

It is great to have order-making power, but it does not go very far if there is a loophole like the exclusions loophole, which is going to remain. One can drive a truck through it—in this case, a truck full of government documents that the government can say has been made advice to a cabinet minister just by driving it by his or her apartment. That is a terrible loophole. The Liberals have not done anything to address it. It undermines granting the Information Commissioner order-making power. I wish we could talk about some of those concrete things that actually have to do with access to information, rather than proactive disclosure, which the government is able to do at any time it wants and which does not require legislative amendments to do it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I have to disagree with my colleague from across the way in regard to proactive disclosure. Some would argue that if we have proactive disclosure and it is legislated, which is virtually what it took for the NDP to comply with proactive disclosure, even dealing with members of Parliament, a lot of information is made available that prevents many members of the public from having to put in requests for access of information.

At the one end, the member talks about whether we really need proactive disclosure. Absolutely, we need it. If we look at the last government, or even governments before that, there have always a been large numbers of requests for information that, under proactive disclosure, would not have had to be advanced. It is very important for us to recognize that.

In regard to the commissioner and their ability to order, again, that is a positive thing. The member wants to focus the attention on loopholes. Yes, there are cautionary measures within the legislation, which it is absolutely imperative to have. However, the principle of allowing the commissioner to now order the release of information, something they cannot do today nor have they had the authority to do for the last 30 years, again, we see that as a very strong positive. That is why we challenge opposition parties to recognize the value of the legislation and to support it. If they have ideas that they want to share at the committee stage, that is wonderful.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg North made a case for why this is something our government is doing that is consistent with our platform and mandate. It is good public policy, and we invited members to help us with it. The contrast he pointed to was the 10 years when the Conservative government had put it in its platform and did nothing to change the Access to Information Act, even though it was its explicit promise. By contrast, in its very first year, our government has had an interim directive from the minister, which took away the fees that were preventing people from making requests. It made the case to the departments that information would be freely available by default and other measures. That was in year one.

In year two, we are making amendments to the Access to Information Act, and drawing on some key pieces that came from the commissioner's advice and from the committee. On top of that, there will the ability for a committee to study this so we can continue to draw on those good ideas. As the member pointed out, in the previous government, there was virtually never any amendments at committee. In our government, there are often amendments allowed at committee. Lastly, by 2018-19, there will be a full review of the entire act.

Why is this update to our access to information regime important, not just to the public or business community, but to opposition members and all members of Parliament having a timely and effective access to information regime?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague the parliamentary secretary brings up some wonderful thoughts. I concur with the underlying theme of the messaging she gave on this very important piece of legislation. We need to recognize that even with the House, the chamber, the many aspects of media relations and the stories we hear about, part of the democracy is ensuring we have access to information. That is critical in terms of helping overall good governance.

I would suggest that this legislation further enhances that. I have been the benefactor of many access to information requests over the years, whether it was here in Ottawa or in the provincial legislature in Manitoba. We need to recognize that this is a very important component when it comes to accountability, transparency, and good governance. That is why I and and many others within this chamber are fairly excited about the legislation. We have not seen any substantial changes to the legislation for over 30 years. It is a modernization, and I look forward to it ultimately going to standing committee. At the end of the day, we will have a more accountable, transparent system because of this particular piece of legislation. That is why I encourage all members to get behind it and vote for it.

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 second time and referred to a committee.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, today is the first day of Right to Know Week. Accordingly, it is a very appropriate time to reflect on the importance of access to information for good governance and advancing our democracy.

I will start by saying a few words about committees, because one of the arguments we have heard at considerable length and volume from the member for Winnipeg North was that the proposed legislation might not be perfect, which is why we have committees that can amend a bill. However, I think it is very important to note that the government has disregarded the recommendations of the access to information committee in drafting the bill. We have a lot of very good recommendations from that committee that have been left by the wayside by the government in putting forward the legislation before us, and so I think there is a problem there.

The second committee I would like to talk about is the government operations committee, because my perspective on the issue of access to information is very much informed by the work I have done with that committee, and specifically the study that we recently conducted on whistle-blower protection in the federal public service. In this case we have civil servants risking their careers, reputations, and livelihoods to bring forward information that is seen to be relevant to Canadian citizens and important to the proper governance of our country. I think it puts in perspective the whole notion of access to information. If we have our public servants going to these heroic lengths to bring forward information that will improve our democracy and safeguard good decision-making, then it is truly incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to come up with the best possible access to information regime so that this information can actually come out without people needing to take the risk of coming forward as whistle-blowers.

The government operations committee did put forward and table in this place a unanimous report, supported by all three major parties represented on that committee, calling for some very substantial improvements to our federal whistle-blower protection system. Those included a broadening of the definition of “wrongdoing” as well as the definition of “reprisals”, creating a reverse onus so that it would be an obligation of the government, as the employer, to demonstrate that disciplinary action taken against a bona fide whistle-blower was not a reprisal, rather than putting a whistle-blower in the almost impossible position of having to prove that it was a reprisal. We recommended better compensation for whistle-blowers to ensure that they are made whole, which would include covering their legal costs. Another aspect of that compensation is priority placement to other equivalent jobs in the federal public service, because once someone has blown the whistle, it could be very difficult and perhaps not very appealing for them to go back to work, quite possibly, for the person they blew the whistle against. Therefore, we think they need to be assured of some sort of alternative employment within the federal public service.

We are waiting with bated breath for cabinet's response to the committee's report on whistle-blower protection, which I would highlight as an important part of bringing forward the information we need. However, the focus of the legislation we are debating today is the access to information system, which is a means of bringing that information forward without requiring public servants to go through the arduous process of being whistle-blowers. All of this is to say that whistle-blower protection is critically important.

I would like to talk about three aspects of the proposed legislation. The first is the scope of the act. The second is exemptions from the act. The third is the difference between proactive disclosure and access to information.

In terms of the scope of the act, it is very important to recognize that in the last election campaign, the Liberal Party promised to extend access to information to the Prime Minister's Office and other ministers' offices. That was a really clear promise, in black and white.

The bill before us today does not do that. It is another broken promise. It is a very clear-cut case. Earlier today we heard a speech by the member for Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle. At least four different members of the opposition asked that government member why this bill does not extend the access to information provisions to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. There was no answer to that question. It is a pretty important question that we should be hearing some sort of a response to from the government side, if not from that particular member of Parliament.

This broken promise is becoming part of a pattern. We see the government's broken promise on electoral reform, the repeatedly stated notion that 2015 would be the last election conducted under first past the post. That is a very blatant broken promise.

We had the promise to close the loophole that allows half of the value of stock options to be exempt from personal income tax, which is another very clear promise the government has broken.

We had the promise to restore door-to-door mail delivery, again going back to the government operations and estimates committee. I was part of the committee that reported on the future of Canada Post and, indeed, recommended a restoration of home mail delivery. Many months later, the cabinet has still not responded to that report, which suggests to me that it is planning to break its promise on door-to-door mail delivery. At a minimum we can say that the government has not yet kept that promise. That is as charitable as I think I can be on that point.

We have a problem with the scope of proposed access to information measures for not including the Prime Minister's Office and other ministers' offices. This bill does nothing to correct that problem, much less keep the Liberals' promise to do so.

The second thing I want to talk about is exceptions to the act. Despite the idea of the right to know, the government can fail to provide information in a variety of ways. One of them, of course, is by delaying the release of information. In some cases, an extension of up to 200 days can make a pretty material difference in how useful the information is and to what purposes it can be put. I would just note that this bill does not do very much to correct those delays in releasing information.

Other exceptions to the act would include cabinet confidences and advice to ministers. Those sorts of things are fairly blanket justifications that the government can invoke to not provide certain information. Almost anything can be labelled “advice to the minister” or a “cabinet confidence”. The bill does nothing to correct those problems either.

Worse, the bill actually adds new grounds on which the government can refuse to provide information. Specifically, the bill would allow the government not to respond to frivolous requests or requests for information that are deemed to be in bad faith.

Earlier today my colleague, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, did an excellent job in making the point that it is not reasonable for some government official to be in a position of having to determine the motivation of the person requesting the information. It is a very odd thing to expect that someone in the public service could determine whether or not a request is in bad faith, and reject it on that basis. I would add that to the list of questions we have not really heard much of a response to from the government today.

We have heard, however, a couple of times an example from the government side of what might be deemed a bad-faith request. In presenting this bill at second reading, the President of the Treasury Board gave the following example: “if an ex-spouse ATIPs his or her former spouse's work hours on a daily basis or their emails.” We also heard the member for Vancouver Quadra repeat that example in the House today.

This example is actually about privacy, and if we just use the acronym ATIP that the President of the Treasury Board used, it stands for access to information and privacy. Certainly we need to protect the privacy of people who work for the federal government and, indeed, of all Canadians, on whom the federal government may possess personal information. However, I would say that privacy protection should not be contingent on whether the request for information is deemed to be in bad faith. Therefore, this is actually quite a poor example from the government side. It would be a good example in favour of adequate privacy protections, but it is a very weak example in defence of this good-faith requirement to access information, because people need to have privacy rights that are very much separate from whether a request for their information is deemed to be made in bad faith. Again, the example that we have heard repeatedly is really about privacy provisions; it is not about being able to reject access to information on the grounds of bad faith. If there is a member on the government side who would like to ask me about that, I would be happy to discuss it further and perhaps consider what the government is really trying to get at here.

A third point that I want to delve into is the difference between proactive disclosure and access to information. Over the last couple of days, it seems that proactive disclosure is emerging as a new Liberal buzzword. It has not yet quite attained the status of the phrase, “the middle class and those working hard to join it”, and it maybe has not quite attained the status of a “whole-of-government approach”, but we have heard a lot about proactive disclosure. I was a bit surprised and disappointed that no member of the government has yet stood to say that this bill would provide a whole-of-government approach to proactive disclosure to benefit the middle class and those working hard to join it, because it was a missed opportunity to tie together all of the best buzzwords from the government side. However, the Liberals do have some speaking slots remaining today, so perhaps there is a member on the government side who is up to that challenge.

However, in all seriousness, when we talk about proactive disclosure, a cynical interpretation would be that if the government is required to disclose all of its briefing books, that would put officials in the position of essentially having to draft special briefing books for public consumption. I think there are limits to the value of proactive disclosure, but we can all agree that proactive disclosure is on balance a good thing. I do not think anyone on the opposition side is objecting to the concept of proactive disclosure, but certainly what we are saying is that proactive disclosure is no substitute for access to information, because proactive disclosure allows the government to prepare certain documents for public consumption and then put them out publicly. That is fine, and it is better for the government to do that than for it not to put forward material for public consumption. However, access to information is quite a different concept. Access to information is about giving citizens access to documents the government does not want to publish. Access to information is about giving citizens access to documents that were not prepared for public consumption. Therefore, while it might be a good thing to expand the scope of proactive disclosure, it is in no way a solution to the problems we have with access to information.

It is important in this debate to make a really clear distinction between proactive disclosure, which the government has been touting and talking a lot about, versus access to information, the right of citizens to access material the government is not putting out publicly. We need to keep those things separate. This piece of legislation amending the Access to Information Act really should be judged on the basis of whether and how much it improves access to information, not on whether the government might also be doing some decent things in the area of proactive disclosure.

I would like to reiterate. I started off by saying that for me, this whole debate is very much informed by the work I have done on the government operations committee, specifically our study of whistle-blower protection in the federal public service. We heard heart-wrenching stories of Government of Canada employees and contractors who lost their careers and their livelihoods by bringing forward information that was relevant to our democracy and to the governance of our country. If we have whistle-blowers out there making those kinds of sacrifices for the good of Canada, then surely it is incumbent on us as parliamentarians, on both sides of the House, to do everything we can to get the best possible access to information system so that as far as possible, information that is relevant comes out through that system, rather than requiring our fearless public servants to make these sacrifices as whistle-blowers.

That is the overall context for this debate and why it is so important to get this legislation right rather than saying that it is maybe a slight improvement over the status quo and maybe we can improve it at committee or in five-year reviews. This is a critically important thing. It is being redone for the first time in three decades, so we need to do a lot better. We need to have the best possible access to information system in our country.

I talked about three different aspects of the bill.

First was the scope of it, which continues to exclude the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. The Liberal promise during the election was to extend access to information to include the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. When the member for Winnipeg North stands up and says that the bill is consistent with what the Liberals talked about during the election or what they heard on the doorsteps, I do not know what he means, because it clearly does not implement what was in the Liberal platform.

Second were exceptions from the act. To me, exceptions include delays and the ability to exclude information based on cabinet confidence or policy advice to ministers. Thanks to this bill, those exceptions would actually be increased to include what are deemed to be frivolous or vexatious requests for information. As I pointed out, the one example we have heard in support of this point is really an example of the need for privacy protections, which should be there whether or not the claim for information is in good faith. That example does not stand up, and I am hoping that the government can bring forward something a lot more credible in support of this notion that officials should be able to reject access to information requests on the basis of some evaluation of the motives of the person making the request.

The final thing I talked about was the difference between proactive disclosure and access to information. Both might be good things, but they are not the same thing. We cannot allow the government's claim to be doing more proactive disclosure to overshadow the fact that it is not doing much at all to improve access to information, which is what the bill is supposed to be about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of the member for Regina—Lewvan, and I want to thank him for the measured, substantive approach he is taking to debate on this very important matter of improving our access to information process in Canada.

He made the point several times in his remarks that there is really no connection between the provisions to require proactive disclosure and access to information. I want to say that I could not disagree more. One of the key complaints about the access to information system, and one of the failures of the system, is the number of access to information requests that are not answered within the statutory time frames, as much as attempts are being made to do so. Why is that? One reason is that there are so many requests today. In fact, 10% of all the requests made in the 34 years this regime has been in place were made in just one recent year. There are an overwhelming number of requests.

What proactive disclosure will do is reduce the number of requests, so it goes directly to the heart of that key challenge for our access to information system's timeliness and effectiveness.

If proactive disclosure is required, not just policy, and it covers 240 institutions, plus members of Parliament, senators, the Prime Minister's Office, institutions of Parliament, and the courts, does the member not believe that this will actually directly assist in the improvement of access to information?

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that there is no connection between proactive disclosure and access to information. I said that proactive disclosure was not a substitute for access to information. Of course there is a connection. If information comes out through proactive disclosure, there might not be the need for it to come out through access to information.

There are also connections to the whistle-blower protection system, as I mentioned. That is another way government information can come forward.

Of course, there are many channels through which government information can become public, and there is some interplay between all those channels, but even if I agree with everything the parliamentary secretary has just said, that more proactive disclosure could reduce the number of access to information requests, we still need better rules for how the government handles those access to information requests. Simply reducing the number of access to information requests is not the goal. The goal should be to improve the way in which those requests are processed so that the maximum amount of information is released in a timely manner. For example, the bill gives the government new excuses for not divulging information. That is a problem, and it is not solved by more proactive disclosure of other information.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of concerns about this legislation, because it has been our experience already that the government is not being open and transparent. We can remember, on the carbon tax, when we requested information, that the Liberals blacked out information parliamentarians should have had access to. Constituents in my riding have put in access to information requests and have had to put them in 20 different times to get the actual answers to the questions.

I fear that there is a huge loophole here for the government to not be transparent, and I wonder if the member could comment.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree that there are big problems with our current access to information system. It is difficult for citizens to get government information, and often there are lengthy delays in obtaining that information, even when it is disclosed. My concern about the proposed bill is that it does not solve those problems. It does not solve the problem of delays. Maybe the parliamentary secretary is suggesting that by possibly reducing the number of requests, other requests could be processed faster, but there is no actual requirement to process requests faster.

The problem we often see is that government departments wait until the very last minute to provide the information. They wait until the deadline, and there is really nothing in this legislation to shorten that period in a significant way or to provide some onus to disclose the information more quickly when it is feasible to do so.

There is also the problem in the bill of giving the government yet more excuses to not release the information at all, including this very nebulous requirement that the request somehow be made in good faith, which I think would be a very difficult thing for the government to judge, even if it were acting completely in good faith.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was a Liberal campaign promise to include the Prime Minister's Office and ministerial offices in the Access to Information Act. It was a directive in the mandate letter to the minister. It was the subject of at least five private member's bills, in the previous Parliament, brought forward by New Democrats.

I would like to hear from my New Democrat colleague what is lost, given the government's failure to include the PMO and ministerial offices in Bill C-58.