Thank you, Chair.
We just heard that the reason the minister has dismissed our report is that...well, the government doesn't want to amend the act twice. It was an explanation provided by Mr. Dechert. I find that transparently disingenuous. The government has not given any indication that it has any intention of amending it even once, never mind twice.
It is interesting; it's in such stark contrast to the Conservative Party's platform from 2006 during the election campaign, when they said a number of things. There was reference to John Reid's “open government” proposal paper, and a commitment in their platform to put that into legislation. There was a commitment to address the problem of access we have due to cabinet secrecy, and the inability of the commissioner to take a look to verify whether or not cabinet secrets are at stake when the government decides they will not provide documentation.
We heard the current commissioner's response to some of these. The government has not moved on any of these fronts, whether it's proposals that were made by John Reid or any of the proposals made by Mr. Marleau that we spent a tremendous amount of time looking at. And those were quick fixes. We were trying to help the government address this very important situation where the transparency of our government was being undermined.
All the data clearly indicate that a fundamental principle of our democracy is seriously being eroded. We can't take lying down this sort of dismissive response from the minister. We would not be acting in a responsible manner as elected representatives of the public if we were to allow this to pass without a challenge.
These attempts at explaining the minister's dismissive attitude toward the committee's report and the current and previous commissioners on this fundamental principle of transparency of government is....
What is transparent here is that the minister has made a decision not to address this issue. What really worries me is that this is running in a parallel track to a situation where our government is engaged in one of the biggest expenditures in the history of our country. It has to be done expeditiously. Mistakes will happen. Public accounts will have the opportunity to look at some of those mistakes. But it's worrisome when we see the manner in which the government has conducted itself over the last months when it comes to infrastructure funding. Whether it was the affair with the cheques, where the Canadian flag was replaced by the Conservative logo, ministers and the Prime Minister putting their names on cheques, it's worrisome. It shows an attitude.
We have to remember that it wasn't the money of a member of Parliament. It wasn't—