Thank you, former commissioner. I'd like to thank you on behalf of all Canadians, my constituents, and obviously, directly, for the work you've done.
It is a fundamental principle of democracy that we see being eroded.
You said in your opening comments that the government has displayed gross negligence when it comes to access to information. I'm not convinced that it's just negligence. The consequence is gross negligence. I'm looking at the patterns and the minister's response, and I can't help but think that the government is engaged in actively undermining the public's right to government transparency. As you said, when the people's rights are diminished--or you quoted our Supreme Court--we have a nation diminished.
Once again, I'd like to thank you for raising the alarm on this situation.
Let's take a look at some of the minister's responses. Before this committee, when we were preparing our report, cabinet confidences....
It's not just journalists who have given up on access to information requests. It's members of Parliament like me. I'm tired of getting blank pages back. There is no way of knowing. There's no third-party review to see whether the questions actually entailed cabinet confidences that would have been disclosed.
The minister responded by hiding behind the Westminster system. He said that this is a cornerstone of the Westminster system. Hasn't this actually evolved, this access to information? There have been changes, including by the mother of the Westminster system. Changes have been made to access to information. New Zealand, for instance, is often pointed to as an example of the way things should happen when it comes to cabinet secrecy and this fundamental right to transparency.
In fact, even here in Canada, provinces.... We had the New Brunswick ombudsman state before us that the public body should actively promote open government. We cannot but agree that the government of the current day is doing the exact opposite.