Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House today to speak on private members Bill C-216, an act to amend the Access to Information Act with respect to crown corporations.
My party has always favoured more openness and transparency in government. It is important for taxpayers to know how their government is spending their money. It is important for Canadians to understand what are the priorities of their parliament and how the bureaucracy is implementing the government's agenda.
This bill raises a new issue. Should the Access to Information Act be extended to include crown corporations as defined under the Financial Administration Act? Some crown corporations are already subject to the Access to Information Act such as Canada Mortgage and House Corporation. Others such as Canada Post and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. are not. The argument made most often by these companies is that because they are subject to competitive pressures of the marketplace, they should be exempt from the access act. Their legitimate fear is their competitors will use the act to obtain sensitive competitive information which could be used to undermine the corporation's competitive advantage.
I phoned the information commissioner's office not long ago to try to resolve these competing interests. What I learned is that under section 18 of the Access to Information Act government institutions can exempt competitively sensitive information. Here is what the act says: “The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this act that contains (a) trade secrets or financial, commercial, scientific or technical information that belongs to the Government of Canada or a government institution and has substantial value or is reasonably likely to have substantial value; (b) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to prejudice the competitive position of a government institution”.
It goes on to also exclude “information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to be materially injurious to the financial interests of the Government of Canada”.
Section 18 then may offer exemptions significant enough under the act that crown corporations would be able to comply with the act without having to disclose sensitive competitive information.
These are issues which must be resolved before a change to the Access to Information Act can be contemplated. In principle we support this bill subject to some changes which I foresee as necessary to protect the integrity of the crown corporations.