Mr. Chair, I don't think I used the words “gross negligence”, but you may have deduced, or at least concluded, that that was where I was headed. It is more than just this government. I did say that the access to information is not the intellectual property of the government of the day because the government of the day can now take the initiative to do something about it. It's eroded over 25 years. It's not eroded just in the last 25 months. I just want to be accurate that I wasn't targeting any particular government at this time. Certainly, I'm disappointed that this government has not taken an initiative that I believe it should take in the response to your report.
On cabinet confidences, what the minister said in his testimony, when he appeared before you, was that the current process with the Privy Council works well. Yes, it does work well for the Privy Council. Canadians have complained to me when cabinet confidences were invoked under the statute, but I have no recourse. I have to tell them that the commissioner has no authority. I should put this in the past tense. Canadians complained to me. I was obliged to tell them that they had no recourse. We have to take the government's word. We have to take PCO's word. We have to take the clerk's certificate at face value when he says this is cabinet confidence. We're the only jurisdiction in Canada in that situation. The commissioner can't even state that it is or not. We have to take the word of the government of the day. It works well for PCO.