--then you can call them and then they can comment on it. You do not let them do the work. They will come here, and I can guarantee you they will say it's an issue that's before them and they cannot comment on it. That's even if you call the Information Commissioner or the ATI staff member in Foreign Affairs; they will not be able to give you any answers to any of your questions.
Now, if you want to talk about ATI requests that have been appealed to the commissioner, where the commissioner has ruled, then where the department has taken the commissioner to court--there are 48 of them or whatever--and where the commissioner has won every time, maybe you want to bring all those people back. I think there's even...it's the Government of Canada or the Attorney General...and the minister at the time mentioned a number of them. I think the Liberal minister actually still sits in the House, though not as a minister. We could call them to find out what went wrong in the process, with them blacking something out, people appealing it, and losing in court against the Information Commissioner.
I'll be happy to have a long discussion on where those issues went under the Liberal government, if that's of interest to the committee, but on this particular case that is in front of us, it has been indicated by the Information Commissioner that they will not be giving.... They would not answer even Mr. Peterson's questions when he was asking them. They will not do any reporting on it until they're finished with the investigations they're working on, on these particular ATI complaints.
I'm very sad for the witnesses we had here today. I think we could have dealt with this at the end of the meeting. But I think it has been clear to us that they've already told us that they won't be coming here to deal with it, that it's in the system and they can't comment on anything that's in the system. I made a friendly change to call it “current ATI complaints”, to resolve the issue that the Honourable Mr. Peterson brought up, that it could go on forever.
I think my motion is ruled in order. I think it's the appropriate thing to do. Other members have mentioned that other committees are trying to do things with it. I don't think Madame Lavallée's request is inappropriate, being that this is the access to information committee, but we're here to give advice on the policy pieces on different items.
I could probably talk for another 50 minutes, but I don't think that's fair. I know many people want to hear me for 50 minutes. But we've been told we could try to call witnesses. I would be very, very surprised, based on the information I have, if they would be able to appear with that in front of us, and then we will end up with no motion, because we won't be able to do anything on it, and then where are we? What have we gained?
That's why my motion I think is appropriate and it does what this committee has set out to do. That's my final word on my motion, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that.