Thank you.
My name is Richard Rosenberg and I'm the president of FIPA, the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. It's a non-profit society that was established in 1991 for the purpose of advancing freedom of information, open and accountable government, and privacy rights in Canada. We serve a wide variety of individuals and organizations through programs of public education, legal aid, research, public interest advocacy, and law reform.
FIPA's an enthusiastic supporter of the reforms to the Access to Information Act proposed by Justice John Gomery, Information Commissioner John Reid, and the federal Conservative Party during the recent federal election. Genuine opportunities for reform of this vital act are rare, and we're concerned, because we perceive, along with many other interested parties, that this opportunity may be slipping away. Significant reforms of the ATI Act have been deferred, and the minor measures included in the Accountability Act afford us little comfort.
Many Access to Information Act reforms were urged by Justice John Gomery in his final report on the advertising sponsorship problems as one key way of restoring public faith in the federal government. We continue to hope that the new administration and all the opposition parties endorse that goal. Our group, along with a large segment of the Canadian public, is anxiously awaiting the fulfillment of promises of a new era of transparency and access to information.
FIPA urges the federal government to fulfill all seven promises of ATI reform made in the Conservative election platform of 2005, and we urge that the Accountability Act be amended to include these reforms.
In its platform to strengthen access to information legislation, the Conservative Party pledged to implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the ATI Act, and FIPA is disappointed that the government has chosen to defer most of these reforms and have them dealt with by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. The tone of the government's discussion paper on ATI reform is regressive, and there's no firm timeline set for achieving these reforms. We disagree, in fact, with comments made by the Information Commissioner that more study of ATI reform may be needed.
The ATI Act has been studied to death, in our opinion, by many committees over two decades, without producing reform, and we're concerned that reference to the standing committee....
Excuse me.