Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on June 12th, 2006

[Susan Baldwin]

The chair's statement said that we would be dealing with the amendments to the clauses that are consequential to clause 65, and those would be 67, 68, 69, 72, 75, 77, 78, 83, 88, and 89. After that, because not all the clauses that are consequential to 65 have an amendment with them--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

My apologies. I just found this sheet of paper. I didn't miss it. The chair did in fact give all of it out, and I had noted it, but in the course of the dinner....

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Isn't this fun?

Thank you, Ms. Jennings. We're back to Mr. Dewar, on NDP-5.1, which is on page 72.1.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

As I mentioned Mr. Chair, what we have here, if you look at it as written, is that:

The Commissioner of Lobbying shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information that was obtained or created by the Commissioner or on the Commissioner's behalf in the course of an investigation conducted by or under the authority of the Commissioner.

What we're proposing here in our amendment is that clause 89 be amended by replacing lines 4 to 10 on page 82 with the following:

However, the Commissioner may not refuse to disclose any record that was created by the Commissioner or on the Commissioner's behalf in the course of an investigation conducted by the Commissioner or under the Commissioner's authority once the investigation is complete and all related proceedings, if any, are final.

What we're trying to do here is ensure ultimate transparency so that when everything is said and done, the records are available for people to see. I think we've heard time and time again from people--witnesses and others--that it's important to be able to have full disclosure when we can, and that's what this is attempting to do, Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Monsieur Sauvageau.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

This is the first of a long series of amendments to the Access to Information Act. Mr. Dewar will correct me if I am wrong.

We agree on the need to reform the Access to Information Act. However, the Conservative members did not want to include this reform in Bill C-2 and the members of the New Democratic Party—not you personally—wanted to speed up passage of this Bill. Therefore, we do not agree to do indirectly what we were not allowed to do directly, in other words agree to amend the Access to Information Act in an underhanded fashion.

There were two possibilities to amend the Access to Information Act, as the Conservative Party committed to do in its platform. This reform could have been included immediately in Bill C-2, but they refused, contrary to their promise during the last electoral campaign. I am not talking about you, Mr. Chairman, but about the Conservative Party. Therefore, we are going to reject any proposed amendment to the Access to Information Act because these amendments should have been submitted to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Since the members of your party refused to do so at the appropriate time, we are not going to start doing it piecemeal here. This is why we are going to oppose amendment NPD-5.1. But rest assured, Mr. Dewar, that we have nothing against you personally.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. Is there any other discussion?

We'll have Mr. Poilievre and then Mr. Dewar.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

We propose a subamendment in the second part of the amendment. It would read as follows:

However, the Commissioner shall not refuse under subsection 1 to disclose any record that contains information that was not created by the Commissioner or on the Commissioner's behalf in the course of an investigation conducted by the Commissioner or under the Commissioner's authority once the investigation and all related proceedings, if any, are final.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll have to get a copy of that.

Mr. Dewar, then Mr. Sauvageau.

Point of order, go ahead.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. It is 9 o'clock.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, we're having so much fun.

I want you to all go home and get a good night's sleep, because we're starting here at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, in the room next door, Room 237-C.

This meeting is adjourned.