Mr. Boulerice, just for clarification, as I think the Information Commissioner confirmed when she was here last week, the report card dealt only with the timeliness of responses, not with breadth of information disclosed. While the CBC did improve and got an A on their last report card with respect to how quickly they were turning over their access requests, I don't think you should read into that or conclude that the breadth of their disclosure has increased.
I agree with you that it would be preferable if there were a comprehensive re-examination of the access to information legislation in Canada. When Canada first got access to information legislation in 1982 or 1983, it was deemed to be at the cutting edge. We were world leaders, and now 30 years later we've become laggards. Our international ranking has gone to 55th out of 93 countries surveyed.
The problem is that I don't see a comprehensive overhaul of Canada's access laws coming any time soon. Maybe that's a project the committee might undertake.
So we're left with individuals who lobby for specific changes to the Access to Information Act. As you know, I tabled questions in the House of Commons about 18 months ago with respect to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, comprising a compendium of issues my constituents had asked me about over the years regarding the CBC, things they were curious about but couldn't find out.
This private member's bill is very limited in scope and very specific. It corrects what I think are some problems with section 68.1, as confirmed by the Federal Court of Appeal. It attempts to bring some meaningful salary disclosure with respect to the top managers in the federal public service, but I admit that it's not a comprehensive change and is very specific and, therefore by definition, piecemeal.