You know, we'd really like to urge the members of the committee, and especially the government members, to realize that new institutions that come under this act are scared, and they're worried. I can remember 23 years ago when the police and the security services wanted exemptions and exclusions. They wanted to be out of this because it was new. Three years later, Parliament conducted a review of this act and the police never showed up. The police agreed that they could meet injury tests. If the information is that sensitive, it's very easy to meet an injury test. If it's so sensitive that it needs an exclusion, surely to God it can meet an injury test.
The most sensitive information that the Government of Canada holds, which is the information of the military, national security, counter-subversion, and counter-terrorism, is all subject to section 15 of the act. This is a discretionary injury test exemption; it is not a mandatory class test exemption. We have had study after study after study, and it has never been recommended that section 15 be made into a mandatory class exemption.
This bill says that the Information Commissioner, for example, has a mandatory obligation to maintain the secrecy, forever, of his investigative records, and the same goes for all other officers of Parliament. No investigative body currently covered by the act has that right. I can tell you, if this passes, CSIS, the RCMP, the military, police, and the immigation investigators will all be in tomorrow, and they'll all be saying if the Information Commissioner needs that much secrecy, boy, we really need it too. So be careful.