Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today to discuss this vital issue for the quality of our democracy.
My Conservative colleague wanted to talk about the budget, but he hasn't yet. I would straight away like to highlight a point on page 208 of the English version of the budget. The new government said:
To make it easier for Canadians to access government information, including their personal information, the Government proposes to create a simple, central website where Canadians can submit requests to any government institution. This will be backed up with a 30-day guarantee for personal information requests...
However, if the request takes longer than 30 days to fulfill, the government can simply send a letter explaining the delay. So that's the quality of the guarantee we're being offered.
The government proposes to provide the Treasury Board Secretariat with $12.9 million for these activities, but hasn't announced any funding for the Office of the Information Commissioner, which is racking up delays and hasn't managed to process hundreds of requests because it doesn't have the resources to do so.
I'd like to hear you talk about this reality of the new Liberal budget.