Mr. Speaker, it is really an honour and a pleasure today to rise and first of all congratulate my colleague, the member for Brampton West—Mississauga, on Bill C-208.
As members of the House will know, it takes a combination of initiative and perseverance to get a private member's bill to third reading, and I congratulate her for that.
Before providing details on the bill, I want to make it clear that the Minister of Justice supports Bill C-208.
The justice committee recently reviewed the bill and, after making some necessary amendments, it unanimously supported its passage. I take this opportunity to thank all the members of the justice committee.
I hope all members of the House will follow the example set by the justice committee and will vote in favour of Bill C-208, regardless of their political affiliation. I say this because, in my opinion, this bill is crucial for Canada and for Canadians, and should therefore get the unanimous support of this House.
Without doubt, Bill C-208 is short but its importance greatly exceeds its length. The bill would add an offence to the Access to Information Act. The offence proposed in the bill would apply to anyone who, with the intent to deny a right of access under the Access to Information Act, destroys, mutilates, alters, falsifies or conceals a record or makes a false record.
The offence would also apply to someone who directs, counsels or causes anyone to do so. This last aspect is important because it means that a person will not be able to escape the offence by telling someone else, a subordinate, for example, to do the act.
When the bill was first discussed in the House, I on behalf of the Minister of Justice expressed reservations regarding the penalty that the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga had put in the original version of her bill.
This was one of the main issues discussed by the committee. I am pleased to report, as I said earlier in the other official language, that the committee unanimously adopted the amendment of the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga. It was agreed that the offence should be made a hybrid offence rather than a straight indictable offence. This means that the crown has the flexibility to proceed against an accused person, either by way of indictment or by way of a summary proceeding.
The flexibility I am referring to is required because the indictment procedure is more complicated and, therefore, summary conviction is simpler and more direct. This flexibility also applies to the possible maximum penalty.
The committee decided that, if a person is prosecuted by way of indictment, the maximum penalty should be five years imprisonment or a $10,000 fine, or both. If a person is prosecuted by way of summary conviction, then the maximum penalty should be six months imprisonment or a $5,000 fine, or both.
Before getting into the purpose of Bill C-208 and generally what it provides for, I would like to take a moment to share some general information with the hon. members of this House.
Canadians have been the beneficiaries of a federal Access to Information Act since 1983. It is not to say that this act could not be improved upon and brought more up to date. In fact we have an example of it today.
Canadians can be confident that the government will not ignore the issue. For a decade and a half Canadians have enjoyed a high level of access to government information. It is worth pointing out that Canada is only one of a handful of countries that has such legislation. For example, England does not yet have access to information legislation although Mr. Blair's government has issued a position paper in favour of creating it.
Under this legislation, only specific and limited exceptions may be invoked by the government for refusing to allow access to information. In such cases, the legislation gives individuals the right to file a complaint with the information commissioner and to have the government's decision reviewed by the federal court.
The purpose of the Access to Information Act is to help citizens play their rightful role in a free and democratic society. Unfortunately, in some societies, citizens do not have such rights and therefore have no means by which they can call their government to account.
When the justice committee first considered Bill C-208 in May of this year it asked the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga to state the purpose of her bill. She declared that her bill was about accountability. It is important to note that on the relationship between the Access to Information Act and accountability the Supreme Court of Canada is in agreement with the hon. member.
The supreme court has so far decided only one case involving the Access to Information Act and therein the court wrote:
The overarching purpose of access to information legislation is to facilitate democracy by helping to ensure that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process and that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry.
I mentioned that Canadians are lucky to have the Access to Information Act but, on closer examination, this legislation is not as flawless as it seems.
An important omission has been identified with respect to the protection it affords: as things now stand, there is no penalty for deliberately altering or destroying a file. The former information commissioner had already pointed this out. In fact, he recommended that an offence relating to the destruction of documents be added to the Access to Information Act.
The law makes obstruction of the information commissioner an offence, and if there is any information relating to the commission of any offence against any law of Canada or a province on the part of any officer or employee of a government institution, the information commissioner may disclose this to the Attorney General of Canada. The bill before us today remedies that shortcoming.
We simply cannot have a situation in Canada in which people can with impunity completely block accountability by destroying documents to thwart access. Bill C-208 would prevent this.
Again I wish to say that the Minister of Justice fully supports Bill C-208.