Mr. Chairman, I always understood that amendments to the Access to Information Act to make the Government of Canada more open and transparent would not be an easy chore. Since I became commissioner, I have been campaigning for improvements to the act to make the necessary changes. When we did the open government act, the committee asked me to bring forward a piece of legislation, but it also told me, “Nothing radical”. So every piece in there has been tested in some other jurisdiction. There's nothing radical that hasn't been done in some other jurisdiction, either in Canada or abroad. All we're dealing with in the open government act is the ability to bring our act up to date because it's 23 years old, and we're providing nothing that is groundbreaking from that point of view.
The government, having made its decision to split Bill C-2--to take the Accountability Act out of Bill C-2--that having been done, I think we have to accept it and proceed as best we can. My concern right now is to make sure those sections in Bill C-2 that impact on the Access to Information Act do so in keeping with the open government draft, and in keeping with the way in which the Access to Information Act currently exists. It would be unfortunate if we made great departures in the structure, because we've had 23 years of experience with the existing structures, and everybody who is in the system understands how it works. There are certainly disagreements, but reasonable people can have disagreements. We all understand how it works. What we want to do is build on that understanding.