I apologize. I will try to do better.
As I was saying:
Bill C-461 cannot be salvaged, even by extensive amendments. The government and Parliament have no place in the newsrooms of the country. Bill C-461 turns an outright exclusion for CBC journalism into an exemption based on an injury test that could be fought by each applicant in court. This would place conditions on CBC's journalism that exist for no other news organization in Canada. This is an affront to the principle of freedom of the media. Some have argued that such demands of the CBC would be unconstitutional. Bill C-461 moves further away from what is really needed: additional measures [to provide protection] from the government and powerful interests.
There are journalistic sources, but also the issue of programming. Mr. Chair, I am sure that we will have occasion to talk about this later since the CBC is in a competitive market, particularly as regards advertising purchases.
In the years immediately after the CBC was put under the Access to Information Act in 2007, the corporation admittedly experienced serious problems in responding to access requests in a timely fashion. That problem has been rectified, as exemplified by the "A" grade recently awarded to the CBC in the most recent report card by the Information Commissioner of Canada.
The author of the bill reminded us during his testimony that Canada had fallen to 56th place out of 90 countries with regard to transparency. My impression is that this bill will solve nothing, that it will jeopardize journalistic sources and that it will also be an attempt to solve a problem that does not exist. There are enough federal government departments and agencies that have transparency and access to information problems. This direct attack on the CBC could have been avoided.
The Guild is not the only organization concerned about journalistic work. Ms. Maryse Bertrand, who is Vice-President, Real Estate, Legal Services and General Counsel at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, wrote to you, Mr. Chair. I believe she testified before this committee.
While this legislation proposes to increase the public's access to information held by removing the specific exclusions provided in law to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bill C-461 may undermine the Corporation's ability to do its job as mandated by Parliament. As the Information Commissioner pointed out in her submission to the Committee, the Federal Court of Appeal ruling is clear: The Commissioner can review documents held by CBC/Radio-Canada in order to determine whether the exclusion under section 68.1 applies, except when it comes to journalistic sources. We are both satisfied with that decision and have been working well together to process our outstanding cases. C-461 would remove the 68.1 exclusion completely. As we noted in our appearance, public broadcasters in Ireland, Great Britain, and Australia all have exclusions from their Freedom of Information laws for journalism, programming and creative activities. The exclusion exists in order to ensure that these public broadcasters are subject to freedom of information legislation without compromising the very job they are mandated to do. It is unclear why that situation should be different for Canada's public broadcaster.
Indeed, Mr. Chair, they are not clear at all. That is our criticism of this bill, which risks jeopardizing one of the most effective newsrooms in Quebec and Canada.
Vice-President Bertrand continued as follows:
Our specific concerns are the following: By changing "journalistic, programming and creative activities", to "journalistic, programming and creative independence", C-461 limits the protection of CBC/Radio-Canada's activities to areas where the Corporation can prove damage to its independence.
Under the system of exemptions, the burden of proof is now on the CBC. Mr. Bob Carty, of the Canadian Media Guild, told the committee about the proof of prejudice to its independence from the government. He told us this:
...a pharmaceutical company eager to know what we are finding out about the deadly side effects of one of its drugs could argue in court that the release of my journalistic materials, even sources, in no way compromises the CBC's independence from government and Parliament. The release would damage my credibility, the CBC's journalistic integrity, and quite possibly subject us to a lawsuit to prevent the material from being broadcast.
Going back to Ms. Bertrand's letter: By failing to specifically protect journalistic sources, C-461 may undermine the ability of CBC journalists to secure the trust of sources, obtain confidential information, and report to Canadians. To be clear, this is not a question of whether the Commissioner can be trusted to see confidential information. The issue is whether confidential sources will trust in CBC/Radio-Canada journalists knowing that their identity will be shared with the Commissioner's office. We must disagree with the Commissioner's belief that journalistic sources are adequately protected elsewhere. They are not.
That is Ms. Bertrand's point of view.
Furthermore, like judges who do not need to see the names of sources in order to decide if they should be protected, we believe the Commissioner does not need access to such names in order to decide that information is at the heart of our journalism. This is why the decision from the Federal Court of Appeal specifically excludes the Information Commissioner from viewing journalistic sources in the current law.
We are not talking about redacting a document to remove only names, but rather about all the information, context, dates and places that might help identify a whistleblower or person working in close co-operation with the commissioner.
I want to close with Ms. Bertrand's conclusion. I will also let my colleagues give us their comments on the amendment that has been presented to us.
Ms. Bertrand writes as follows:
If Parliament wishes to update Canada's Access to Information Act, we believe that it should do so, as part of an overall review. As the Commissioner told the Committee, changes to Access to Information "demand thoughtful, unified action and are not easily amenable to a piecemeal solution. Piecemeal efforts result in unintended consequences which it is now clear, would be the case with this piece of legislation, however well-intentioned. For these reasons, we believe that the Parliament should not proceed with C-461.
In our humble opinion, the amendment designed to protect journalistic sources is inadequate. In fact, the entire bill should be reviewed. The protections provided for the CBC's journalistic, creative and programming work should be strengthened. However, that is not what we see before us.
In light of these preliminary remarks, Mr. Chair, I would like to say that we will vote against the amendment.