Thank you, Chair.
The parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister went to some length to suggest how quickly after the ad campaign ended you got the information out. I would suggest to both the parliamentary secretary and to you, Minister, that's a substantial misnomer, because if you had an ad campaign that lasted a full year, from January to December, that would mean you wouldn't provide information till the end. I think it's quite appropriate for Canadians to ask for and receive ongoing costs for an advertising campaign that has a partisan slant to it from this government, in many cases.
The key point I think here is the sanitation of information that's coming out of the minister's office. I think Mr. Dewar suggested earlier you might even call it laundering. That's the real issue here. There's no question from everything I've seen from this government that there is a clamping down on the public service's ability to release information without it first being sanitized in one way or another. We do have an independent public service, or at least it's supposed to be.
Given that background, I would say that almost all communications products are reviewed by the PCO or PMO, and you can answer that. ATIP requests are interfered with by political staff, your staff being some. Media requests for information are interfered with by political staff. We know detainee documents are being withheld. The Information Commissioner says that “the right of access to information is at risk of being totally obliterated”. That list goes on and on.
Given what I've just stated, how does that jibe with the Prime Minister's promise to improve access to information, transparency, and accountability? I would say it's anything but. I don't think we've ever seen a government less transparent than this one.