I'm sure the example of the sponsorship mess isn't the most happy one for my Liberal colleagues to use. We are trying to make this real for Canadians. Why does this matter? Many Canadians don't deal with the Access to Information Act; they don't file complaints.
There are other examples in which the information would not have come to the light of day if Bill C-58 had been law. We've had testimony at this committee about Afghan detainees, the F-35, or costs for the war in Afghanistan. Those types of things were garnered only because journalists, or other Canadians, used the Access to Information Act to get information from the government that, in those cases at least, it didn't want out, but because the law required it, it had to be revealed.
I would appreciate it if, either now or later, you could cast backwards and say, if access to information had been under this provision, this, this, and these stories could not have come to the light of day. Would you be able to do that for the committee?