Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Suzanne, for visiting us again and for providing some great information.
I'm pleased to hear, as you said earlier, that overall you felt like our government departments were quite open. There is still more work to be done, and I think what we're really talking about here at committee is a process in terms of how we can get there.
I have some questions on information, but given the richness of some of the questions that have been asked earlier, I want to fill out some space on them.
I was particularly struck by some comments earlier around the Freedom of Information Act in the United States, the open government regime. You alluded to some problems there. I appreciate that there were different reasons, first of all, why the United States, the U.K., and Australia got to where they're headed by way of policy or formal legislation. I'm reading from tab 4, from the materials you gave today. It's my understanding here that according to the report on FOIA—that's the Freedom of Information Act—fewer than a third of the 90 federal agencies that process requests for information have significantly changed their practices since Obama's initial order. The report also found a wide variety of changes in each agency's decision to release or deny access to information. So there are clearly some challenges there, I suppose, to the overly favourable characterization that my colleague had earlier.
Furthermore, the Washington Post analysis published in January 2010 found that more people have sued the government for access to federal records in the first year of the Obama administration—more than 319 lawsuits—than in the final two years of the previous administration. So clearly, while the language has been typically colourful, as it tends to be from that particular President, there is still a lot of work to be done on the ground with respect to access to information. We want to be sure, as a committee, then, that we study the challenges that the United States have faced and try to overcome them. That said, I do appreciate that not all of Obama's ideas are great with respect to access to information, and this committee should be here to help Canadians get access to that.
I might preface my question by a simple observation. While perhaps in the United States they were busy loading up what they intend to do, we were busy getting shovels in the ground. If anybody disputes that, they can come to the great Kenora riding and see holdups with road delays and bridges under repair, schools being built, and just an overall kind of “get it done” sort of theme. I have been busy loading that information into a massive spreadsheet, which I hope to make available to the public on my website, which clearly demonstrates the status of all of the announcements and the work we're doing. That will benefit, clearly, not just my own constituents...
There was an infrastructure stimulus fund secretariat...he was disguising himself; he was actually a Liberal MP who was calling around to communities in my riding to get information about the status of certain projects. So he, too, instead of having to disguise himself, will be able to get that information. Again, we're helping with that.
My question is this, then, leading in, and it's a rather lengthy segue, and I apologize, Mr. Chair.
