Thank you, Chair.
Thank you so much for your suggestion. That is the course that I would like to see us follow. I think it's important that we have dialogue. Letter writing and e-mails aren't always the most effective way. You play a little bit of ping-pong and you still don't have a sense of why someone feels the way they do.
I really think it is important to encourage the minister to appear in camera before the committee so that we can get some answers to not only this latest letter, but also with respect to the access to information.
Specifically, I'd like to be able to ask him—and I don't know how you do this in a letter—why he continued to recommend that we do an in-depth study of strengthening the Access to Information Act, for instance, when the Information Commissioner said that what this proposes, if accepted, will reduce the amount of information available to the public, weaken the oversight role of the Information Commissioner, and increase government's ability to cover up wrongdoing, shield itself from embarrassment, and control the flow of information to Canadians.
I don't know if you've all read this, but in my view, the Information Commissioner wasn't wrong. So I wonder why the minister would want to direct us to study ad nauseam something that has already been dismissed as not being in the public interest by not only the commissioner but several members of the committee.
So I really do see the importance. I would like to see the minister so we can ask questions and so we're not playing ping-pong.
Thank you.