Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 11th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I understand that, but the wording is “drawing” on work; it doesn't say exclusively.

But the motion is in order. The member has put this motion before the committee, with some explanation. I think the reasons were well explained, that there were other views such as those of the Auditor General, and certainly we would be familiar with those.

So the amendment posed by Mr. Poilievre, to add the part about the Auditor General's cautions, is in order. I would think members might like to deal with that now.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Am I allowed to speak to it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Of course, Mr. Woodworth, if there's any additional information that we don't have, or opinion--please.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I understand the intent of the motion. It is to in fact encourage some consultation in the process of implementing this recommendation, if the government chooses to do so. That, of course, again engages us in the issue of the time required to implement this recommendation, if the government chooses to do so.

I have heard members say that there is some urgency about this. At the moment, however, I am left with the sense that there is impatience. I have not been told of anything that would suggest that this is urgently required by the end of March, or that such consultations as with the Auditor General could not be given time to occur. I would be grateful to hear some discussion about why this is suddenly urgent, or in fact if it is simply a question of impatience rather than urgency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Madame Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Woodworth, I would remind you that the urgency of the matter was first noted by your party, which made a campaign promise about it in 2006. Your party promised Access to Information Act reforms. Your party is the one that said this was urgent.

I am not an impatient person, but I would sure like to know why you have not yet done your homework. This was one of your campaign issues in 2006. Now here we are in Ottawa in 2009. Listen! This was in your election campaign; this was Mr. Harper's issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I want to thank the honourable member, Madame Freeman, for wanting to assist us in carrying out the Conservative Party election platform. I'm sure that will come up again in other discussions.

But I wanted to respond directly to your point on the wording “drawing on the work of the Information Commissioner Mr. John Reid” and the fact you pointed out that it doesn't say “exclusively”. My understanding of interpretation is that if you refer to something specifically then that necessarily suggests you're excluding other things you didn't specifically refer to. So the preferable way to word that motion would be to remove the words “drawing on the work of the Information Commissioner”, because that leads people to the conclusion that that is all you want to have in the legislation that would be proposed. I disagree with that interpretation and I think we have to be careful in the way we word these things. Obviously lots of other views need to be taken into account in proposing any kind of new legislation like this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Poilievre.

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

Unfortunately, my friend Mrs. Freeman is no longer here.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

I am still here.

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

I really do care, you see.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Me too.

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

What lovely things to say.

The reason I mentioned her name is that I wanted to respond to a number of her comments. She mentioned campaign promises our party made during the 2006 election. She was right: we did promise to revamp the Access to Information Act. I think she will agree that we did so with the Accountability Act. Several Bloc Québécois members were on the special committee dedicated to reforming access to information.

The same thing happened with the New Democrats. Pat Martin made a significant contribution. Our friend, Mr. Sauvageau, who is no longer with us, also made a huge contribution. There have indeed been changes since the 2006 election. We have to recognize that some work has been done, and we have to figure out if there is any need to do more. Mentioning just one of the experts in the motion makes it unbalanced and does not reflect the scope of the debate we have had on this issue in Canada.

What I am trying to do is mention another officer of Parliament, the Auditor General, because she warned us about a number of Mr. Reid's suggestions. The two experts did not agree on the issue.

For example, Mr. Reid wanted to expose draft audits to access to information, and Ms. Fraser said that would cause the integrity of internal auditing systems to be questioned. I just worry that if we put forward a motion naming only one expert to the exclusion of others, we might fail to capture in this motion the breadth of the recommendation we seek to put forward to the government.

The chair has correctly pointed out that motions are recommendations. That does not mean that their words are devoid of meaning. Of course those words have meaning, or else we needn't pass any motions at all. Therefore, I am seeking to get the wording right by putting forward Ms. Fraser's name.

I have heard another suggestion from Mr. Dechert that could perhaps resolve this whole debate. I don't know if he will be seeking the floor to introduce an overriding amendment, but if he would be prepared to do that, I would be prepared to consider supporting it. There is a way that perhaps we can avoid disagreement over who's named and who isn't, and whose feelings are hurt because they were left out. I don't think our committee wants to be in the business of hurting feelings.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

The Conservative Party of Canada, for the longest time, spoke of greater transparency with a great passion. It's unfortunate, because what we've seen over the last number of years is the exact opposite when it comes to access to information. It's not serving Canadians well. I know that many are perturbed by another one of these broken promises by the Conservative Party of Canada.

Even though this filibustering that we're bearing witness to today in this committee on this motion began with a preamble of how our colleagues across the table are in support of this particular motion, the fact that this motion, which should have been easily dealt with, has not been indicates that there is no real intent to see this type of act be strengthened. It's especially perturbing that we're filibustering on a day the committee is to take a look at the supplementary estimates.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, we really have to be relevant to the motion before us. We do have an amendment, and I think we're getting into speeches on matters that are way beyond...and of a partisan interest. I don't think it's in the best interest of the committee to pursue this further, because it's simply going to ping-pong across the table. I don't think we should go there.

Unless you have anything very relevant and specific to the amendment before us or the motion that we are seeking to have passed or amended here, I would like to move forward. I don't want to impute motives to anybody here. We can't do that in the House, and therefore we can't do that in committee, notwithstanding our strong feelings on certain things. I'd like to leave it right there, okay?

Mr. Dechert is on the list, so I'm going to go to him.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Poilievre said he might be willing to entertain an amendment to his amendment--I guess we'll call it a friendly amendment, for lack of a better term.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

If you're interested in making it, Mr. Poilievre can simply withdraw his amendment--if that's his wish--and then you can move your amendment, and that will make it a lot simpler.

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

If I am assured that--

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes, he has the floor.

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

Okay, I will withdraw it.

(Amendment withdrawn)

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The amendment by Mr. Poilievre is withdrawn, and now I recognize Mr. Dechert, who has, I believe, an amendment.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'd like to propose that the wording of the motion be amended to delete the words “drawing on the work of the Information Commissioner Mr. John Reid and that,” and we would simply retain the balance of it. This is not suggested in any way from a motive of not wanting to introduce legislation to modernize the Access to Information Act. Obviously we think this is very important, and we intend to do it. As I said earlier, referring to one specific report could be interpreted as in fact limiting the scope of the legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Dechert, thank you kindly.

The amendment is in order. We've had quite a bit of debate around this issue of whether it's a list and whether or not it's restrictive, and so on. I think everybody understands, and your motion quite frankly eliminates that discussion totally, or the need to have that discussion. I think it's quite evident.

As a consequence, because I am cognizant that we do have witnesses waiting for us and other work to do, I suggest that we deal with Mr. Dechert's amendment to the motion now.

You've heard it; it is basically to delete, after “Information Act”, the comma, and “drawing on the work of the Information Commissioner Mr. John Reid and that”. So it's simply to delete the reference.