Thank you, Chair.
I understand that two requests to the Department of Foreign Affairs for information on detainee transfers are being delayed. They're at 290 days and counting.
We have a request at the Department of National Defence for information on the acquisition of Chinook helicopters. It's been delayed for 330 days.
There's a policy now that even for something as simple, for instance, as the Service Canada youth employment strategy and summer work experience program, search fees are being applied. For example, on a request for rejection letters in May 2007, Service Canada said that 570 hours would be required for these letters that all went in just in one month, for a fee of $5,650.
What I'm providing are specific examples that show.... I used the term “Orwellian” previously, not lightly but because that appears to be what's going on. We have a government that claims they've expanded the access, yet in fact the statistics are showing the exact opposite, and we're getting at the fundamentals of democracy, the principle of openness.
There's an incredible amount of frustration among MPs that their requests are being delayed, in some cases by a year, and we still have no answers. We hear we're being amber-lighted. Journalists are being amber-lighted. Do you not agree that this type of secrecy and Orwellian approach to access to information in fact totally subverts the intent of the act?