Mr. Speaker, since my speech is extemporaneous, I shall address the question in a general term with respect to justice and doing things that are right in the country. I am not that rich on specific details on the bill since I have not had an opportunity to study the minute details.
I would like to comment on the statements we have just heard from the parliamentary secretary. It seems to me there is a habit in this House whenever a private member brings forward a motion. Even though it is filled with common sense and a lot of good ideas which are very useful and very broadly supported among Canadians, the Liberal government for the last four years plus a little bit has almost always been in opposition to the private member's initiative. It usually finds some small technical point.
For example, the parliamentary secretary spoke of the variance in sentencing for one misdemeanour versus another one. She said why should this sentence be greater than another one where the criminal offence seems to be more offensive to Canadians. We could say that over and over.
For example a person who under the new gun registration law fails simply to report the sale of a hunting rifle could end up with a greater penalty than a young person who killed someone. That is also an aberration in the sentencing structure and it is not sufficient reason to say we should just be against this whole bill.
I urge the government to support this initiative. The government should support it so that the bill will go to committee and when it is studied in committee, perhaps the committee in its wisdom will amend the sentencing structure so that at least we get something that will protect Canadians.
One has to ask the question, what is justice and on what is justice based? I contend that it is based on truth. Whether it is a civil suit or a criminal case, someone is charged with an offence. In many cases we simply want to hold the government accountable. We want to find out what has happened. Have they done something that is wrong? Is there some accountability question?
I believe we err greatly if we get so tied up in our dealings with government, whether it is in the justice system or in any other system, and the truth is not available. Frankly, if a government official or someone in some other organization does something which is offensive to someone else and it is a chargeable offence, then they should have to meet those charges. The whole issue at stake here is the altering of documents which are being requested under access to information from government departments. Why on earth would we want to support a system which provides for the production of documentation which is false? There ought to be very strong penalties and strong deterrents against that type of thing.
Whether a person from the media, a person from the official opposition or one of the other opposition parties or indeed even a member from the government side wants to know what has happened, they should be able to get documentation which accurately reflects the truth. That is the heart of the issue here.
I strongly urge the government to support this bill so that when it goes to committee, sure, if there is something that it is not totally supportive of, let us work together. Let us make the bill work on behalf of Canadians, on behalf of the taxpayers of the country, on behalf of the victims of whatever the case is.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know what you do for your bedtime reading, but the other night for my bedtime reading I was reading the deal struck with the former prime minister and the justice department on this Airbus scandal. When I was reading it I found it intriguing in one place. It said “The parties agree that” and then they went on to say that this was done strictly by the RCMP and by no one else.
I have a suspicion when I read words like that. If this is actual fact, why would one have to agree to it? It is as if we agree to say something that is not really quite true but it is a term of the agreement which gets us out of the conflict. That ought not to be. We ought to deal honestly, we ought to deal openly, we ought to deal truthfully with one another in all of these instances.
I hesitate to raise this example because it is very old. In fact, I will not be specific. I will just mention it in general. When I had some access to information requests several years ago, I received information back from the department that I had requested with a great amount of the document whited out. It was altered so that I could not see the truth. I was unable to reconcile the questions which were troubling us because we were not able to get at the truth.
There was, of course, a justification by the President of the Treasury Board who said that these things were justifiably whited out but that was a legal technicality, one with which we disagreed. The effect of it was that the truth was hidden from us. We were not able to get down to the facts of the issue. So there was a cover-up. There was a whiteout of the actual facts.
We believe very strongly that for justice to prevail on behalf of Canadians, irrespective of what the issue is, we should be able to find out who did this, who did what, when did they do it and where did they do it. There should be answers to all of those questions which are totally reliable. Those documents must not be alterable simply to cover someone's, shall I use the phrase, political butt because they do not want to face the consequences. There should be total honesty and openness in the access to information that citizens, reporters and others ask for.
I also think that on a very broad basis the justice system and the government in general have an obligation. When they were running for election in 1993, the Liberals said “We will restore the confidence of Canadians in the integrity of their government”. That was their promise.
I think right here in this bill they have another opportunity to make an attempt to fulfil that promise, a promise I venture to propose is not anywhere near being filled at this stage.
They have an opportunity here by saying yes, we will take all the measures we possibly can to make sure that access to information requests will reveal the truth of the matter. This is absolutely mandatory. It is an opportunity for the Liberal government. I urge the government to be in favour of this.
I have one point with respect to private members' business. I really hope that all private members, including Liberal backbenchers, everyone, will judge this bill on its merits and will truly vote what they believe and not be instructed by those who have some other political agenda.