Mr. Chairman, my position is that these bills are justice bills and this is before the House. In his interruptions, Mr. Peterson said it has nothing to do with this motion, but it does, unless you want us to drop all the justice bills and move into this topic. And that can be done. It may be that Madame Lavallée and others should start pushing for some of these bills so we can get to the information legislation, which is indeed very important.
Mr. Chairman, I think the motion is premature and she should wait until the 15th to hear what the minister is going to do. The committee has heard from the commissioner and the minister. The minister made some comment on a discussion paper when he spoke to us last June, I think, which was tabled in April, dealing with access to information. This committee has yet to even start looking at that topic.
I assume from the motion made by Madame Lavallée, which carried, that Madame Lavallée doesn't want to talk about former Commissioner Reid's proposed bill, which was adopted by this committee. It has essentially been rejected. Therefore, I can conclude from her motion that she wants the government to ignore that bill and proceed with another bill.
The minister came to this committee and said, here's a discussion paper. We've put it on our bookshelf and we haven't looked at it. Before we start getting on a rant as to why she hasn't heard from the minister, even though she's given until December 15, at the very least she should look at that discussion paper.
Once the committee has had an opportunity to speak to the stakeholders and review the issue of the cost of the proposals suggested by the Information Commissioner, the government would be in a stronger position for the next stage of access reform. The committee hasn't dealt with that. I would hope the committee, before getting into that, would review that discussion paper and talk about what these proposals are going to cost.
Mr. Chairman, those are the main issues. Quite frankly, I think it's a flippant proposal, and I say that with due respect to Madame Lavallée. She should wait until her original motion, which is December 15.