Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this letter from the minister. However, Chair, we do have a motion that was moved during the course of the committee's business last Thursday. My understanding of procedure is that this motion should be taking precedence over the other business of the committee.
Now, I know we've put it off because we had the acting commissioner come to the committee meeting on Tuesday. But I hope this discussion doesn't go on for a long time, because we should be considering that motion, in my opinion. Whereas this general discussion on the minister's response is, I think, valuable, I hope we don't spend a lot of time on it.
I'm not going to do anything formally about my suggestion, but I hope this doesn't carry on for a long time, so that we can instead get to the discussion of the motions that have been given notice and are properly part of the business of this committee.
That being said, Chair, I'm not impressed by the minister's letter. This committee, over many years, not just in this Parliament and the previous Parliament, but going back a number of Parliaments, and in fact during other governments, has made very strong and clear recommendations about the need for legislative change; and very strong, clear and definitive recommendations about what that legislative change should be.
I think we can't do anything more than that at this point, and I think the government has had the best input from this standing committee over many years and could easily proceed to presenting new draft legislation around access to information.
I think this is just ragging the puck on the part of the government and a backing away from the commitments they made around access to information in their platform document in 2006, and a backing away from their appreciation of the importance of access to information, which they certainly articulated well when they were in opposition. I am extremely disappointed by the minister's response.
I'm also disappointed by Mr. Dechert's characterization of the opposition as only wanting the minister here so we can make speeches to him. That's certainly not the way I have behaved when the minister has been present at committee; it's not the way I intend to behave when the minister's here. I feel it's dismissive of my participation on the committee and I hope he'd reconsider his position, because it's certainly not my intention to “make speeches” to the minister, as he put it.
But I do think the minister should be asked to come. I think he's given this committee short shrift in the past and has limited his appearances and the time he's had available to this committee, despite the importance of access to information. As Mr. Pat Martin, who was here last week on behalf of the NDP, says, access to information is in fact the “oxygen” of democracy. I think we need to make sure that flow is resumed and continues to illuminate the work of government—and we're not getting that.
Thank you, Chair.