If I am not mistaken, in 1987, the Justice committee had already made 100 recommendations to reform the Act. In 2000, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Justice had set up a committee of officials to study the Act in order to make regulations and establish policies that would modernize the Access to Information system. In 2001, the special committee chaired by John Bryden, a Liberal MP at the time, had tabled 11 priority recommendations.
Since then, a number of Parliamentarians have tabled private Bills to amend the Act. In April 2005, Liberal minister Irwin Cotler had asked the committee to study the Act. There was a detailed framework document relating to reforming access to information. In October 2005, your predecessor, Information Commissioner John Reid, had submitted a comprehensive Bill to the government of Paul Martin. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which I am now a member of, has twice called on the Liberal and Conservative governments to stop pussyfooting and to table a Bill to reform the Access to Information Act. All to no avail.
On November 3, 2005, New Democratic MP Pat Martin had tabled a motion asking the government to table a Bill. In December 2005, a certain Stephen Harper, leader of the old Reform Party which is not the Conservative Party, had stated that he would implement the recommendations of the Information Commissioner on reforming the Access to Information Act. We are still waiting and that is another broken promise.
In September 2006, Carole Lavallée, a Bloc québécois MP, had also tabled a motion in the committee asking the government to table a new Access to Information Act in the House before December 15, 2006. On September 27, 2006, the committee had tabled a report in the House of Commons with the same recommendation.
More recently, a motion passed on February 11 last by the committee chaired by MP Paul Szabo recommended to the government to table in the House before May 31, 2009, which is pretty soon, a new, stronger and modern Access to Information Act which could be based on the work of the previous Information Commissioner, Mr. John Reid.
On March 4, 2009, you submitted twelve recommendations which I have read and which have been studied several times by this committee. I would suggest that we include all 12 recommendations in a single one asking the government to keep its promise and to do what the Liberals did not, that is to say to be persons of honor and to table a Bill--with all the information gathered over the past 20 years--finally to give us a new Access to Information Act.
Could such a recommendation come from you? I do not want to put you on the spot but I want to help you to make sure that Canada leave the Middle Ages. Since you referred to a grandmother, you see where I am coming from.