Debates of Feb. 12th, 1998

Canadian Wheat Board Act

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly to what is happening in this House because I am very concerned.

I am concerned because during a time when our country is being torn at the seams and there are a lot of presumed regional differences, we have the threat of a large region of our country having its wishes and its aspirations ignored. The Liberals have the power and we concede that. They won the election. They have the majority of the seats. But it is unfortunate that they are misguided in their evaluation. They keep coming back to this statement that the farmers want what they are doing here. Unfortunately it is based on incorrect data.

The reason it is based on incorrect data is because of a prior strategy and a prior program that the minister and possibly the bureaucrats had. Consequently when a question was asked of the farmers, the question was not such that the farmers could respond the way they wanted to. It is a question of asking is there a will to solve the problem. Instead, they gave the farmers but two choices: Do you want the wheat board or do you not?

The majority of the farmers want the wheat board. That is what we are here representing. There is a majority, we believe, that want the wheat board. But there are also a large number of farmers who feel that the wheat board could do better for the farmers that choose to use the wheat board if there would be some competition. I do not believe that the monopoly of the wheat board is a necessity nor is their health threatened if some small number of farmers when opportunity presents itself choose to use a different form of marketing their own products.

I spoke on another part of this bill the other day. I will repeat what I said then. For example, a farmer raises his grain totally at his own expense and with his own investments. He sees one place where he can get $5 a bushel for a grain that the wheat board is offering him $3 for, and the farmer can get the $5 immediately instead of waiting for those final payments from the wheat board. It seems to me eminently reasonable, and most prairie farmers agree with this, that the farmer on that occasion, having found a market for his product, should have the freedom in this country to market his product where he so chooses. That would happen to be the one with the best price.

What we have is a majority government in this House, most of the representatives of which come from areas where the Canadian Wheat Board Act does not apply. I am not saying they are not qualified to speak to this. I know the other day there were some members of the Bloc who took exception because they thought hey, we are Canadians. Absolutely they can speak to it and yes, it is a Canadian question.

At the same time the government errs by not hearing the people who are most affected by the decision about to the taken. I am going to right now incite a riot. I am going appeal to the members oppose to just straight out defy their whip. They are going to have a whipped vote on these amendments. I am going to ask them to say instead of listening to our whip we are going to do what is right on behalf of those constituents who live in ridings that are not even our own. I appeal to them and urge them to do that because that is what is right.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5.30 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage and second reading of the bill now before the House.

Pursuant to order adopted on Wednesday, November 19, 1997, all motions in Group No. 7 are deemed to have been put and recorded divisions are deemed to have been requested and deferred.

Pursuant to the order adopted earlier today, a recorded division is again deferred until Monday, February 16, 1998, at the end of the period provided for the consideration of government orders.

It being 5.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from December 5, 1997, consideration of the motion that Bill C-208, an act to amend the Access to Information Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Access To Information Act

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to comment on Bill C-208 which would amend the Access to Information Act to add an infraction to that act.

More specifically, the bill states that a person who with intent to deny a right of access under this act destroys or alters a record, or falsifies a record or makes a false entry in a record or does not keep required records is guilty of an indictable offence and may be imprisoned for up to five years or fined up to $10,000 or both.

Let me begin my comments by stating clearly that I support the general goal of this bill and I commend the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga for having introduced it.

I have some experience with respect to access to information. I dealt with the act in my former capacity as mayor of the municipality, chairman of the hydro-electric commission for Kitchener—Wilmot and especially as chairman of the Waterloo regional police.

The act as it now stands makes an offence of obstructing the work of the information officer and commissioner and provides a penalty for that offence. The act also authorizes the commissioner to disclose to the Attorney General of Canada information relating to the commission of an offence against any law of Canada by any officer or employee of a federal government institution.

Certain events that occurred during the Somalia and the blood inquiries have drawn public attention to the fact that the Access to Information Act contains no penalty for this sort of action. One can argue then that these events clearly illustrate and underscore the need for an infraction in the Access to Information Act.

There is a provision of general application in the Criminal Code. Section 126 of the Criminal Code states:

Every one who, without lawful excuse, contravenes an act of Parliament by willfully doing anything that it forbids or by willfully omitting to do anything that is required to be done is, unless a punishment is expressly provided by law, guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

It could be argued that section 126 of the Criminal Code might apply to the situation of somebody deliberately destroying a document in order to thwart the access act, in so far as a destruction would result in the person willfully omitting to do anything that the act in this case requires to be done.

This brings me to an interesting point which is also my main concern with respect to Bill C-208.

Section 126 creates an indictable offence, which is the most serious type of offence in the Criminal Code. The section 126 offence carries a maximum penalty of two years. I believe that the seriousness of an indictable offence in section 26 is one of the reasons it might be necessary to add a specific offence to the Access to Information Act.

In this cases, the specific offence of deliberately destroying documents subject to the Access to Information Act should not be quite as serious as an indictable offence with a maximum of two years imprisonment.

This is not what Bill C-208 proposes. Rather, it proposes to create a specific offence in the access act. But this specific offence not only would not carry a lesser maximum penalty than the one attached to the offence in section 126, it would in fact carry a heavier penalty, a maximum penalty of five years.

It is important to outline that the Criminal Code provides offences in three types, summary convictions, indictable offences and hybrid offences that the crown can elect to prosecute either as an indictable offence or as a summary conviction offence. The summary conviction offence carries the lightest penalties and the indictable offences, of course, carry the heaviest. With hybrid offences the attached penalty depends on the procedure selected by the crown.

An important point is that when an accused is prosecuted by indictment he can choose to be tried before a judge and jury, which can be a very slow process. In addition, the accused is entitled to a preliminary inquiry when the offence is an indictable one.

I understand the hon. member wants to mark the seriousness of the offence by making it an indictable offence. However, it may also be counterproductive if it results in the crown not proceeding and prosecuting with that offence because in light of the particular circumstances of the case it is felt that it would not be worth the costs and efforts of the justice system, or when they view the penalty as disproportionate to the crime, taking into account the circumstances of the offence and the motives of the offender.

I would also wonder how much benefit and how much additional protection society would get from sending the offender in this case to jail.

Let us look for a moment at the list of some of the Criminal Code offences that are hybrid, and for which the penalty would be lighter than a straight indictable offence when the crown proceeds by summary conviction: for example, criminal harassment, more commonly known as stalking, uttering threats, assault, assault causing bodily harm, unlawfully causing bodily harm, assaulting a police officer, and sexual assault.

These offences are serious offences, but making them hybrid allows some discretion for adjusting the procedure and the penalty to the circumstances of the offence.

I would argue that destroying documents, while undoubtedly serious, is not more serious than assaulting a police officer.

I think a comparative study of Criminal Code offences should be carried out in order to classify a specific offence of destroying documents in the access act and determine an appropriate maximum penalty in this case.

In conclusion, I view the creation of a penalty for deliberately destroying documents to thwart the Access to Information Act is an important issue to be looked at in the context of an overall review of the access legislation.

I reiterate that I support the goal of Bill C-208, which is to add to the access act the penalty for deliberately destroying documents that are subject to that act.

The hon. member has worked hard on this, but I am unable to support the proposal of Bill C-208, which is to create a penalty that would be a straight indictable offence with a maximum penalty of five years in jail. This, in my view, is simply too heavy a penalty, and providing for such a serious offence might be counterproductive in relation to the objectives.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to participate in the debate on Bill C-208, an act to amend the Access and Information Act introduced by my hon. colleague from Brampton West—Mississauga. I want to commend her for her hard work in bringing this private member's bill forward.

We in the Reform Party believe that government must be accountable to the Canadian people. For too long governments have been ignoring their constituents and, once elected, stop being accountable to the very same people who elected. The affairs of government are often done in complete secrecy.

We in the Reform Party believe that Canadians have a stake in government affairs as duly representatives and must ensure that our actions are open to public scrutiny. The Access to Information Act was introduced with just that intent, to ensure that information collected for public purposes, paid for by the taxpayers of Canada, remained accessible to them. I will speak about that in a moment and give some specific examples.

However, that has not been the case. There are numerous examples of the Liberal government taking it upon itself to decide unilaterally what is good for Canadians without talking to them. It decides what the public should know and what it should not know. The Somalia inquiry is one example. We have talked about that for a long time. The Krever inquiry is another example which was mentioned by my colleague from Alberta today.

This is an example with which I am more familiar. It is a recent example about which I have been questioning the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans over the last two weeks. I have been pushing the government to release the foreign observer reports which the minister refuses to make public. We want to know what he is hiding from the Canadian public.

These reports contain vital information pertaining to the fisheries crisis, yet the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is hiding behind the Access to Information Act, saying that he would be breaking the law if he were to release them. That is what he said, that he would be breaking the law.

I would like to read into the record the section of the act which the minister is referring to, and he has done so in writing: “Subject to this section, the head of the government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this act that contains financial, commercial, scientific or technical information”, and that is what I believe he is referring to, “that is confidential information supplied to a government institution by a third party and is treated consistently in a confidential manner by a third party”. That is what he is hiding behind. Yes, it sounds pretty reasonable. I can decide what is good for the public and what should be allowed to be released.

Let me go on. Subsection 6 states: “The head of the government institution may disclose any record under this act”—and he has received lots of written requests—“or any part thereof that contains information described in paragraphs 1(b), (c) or (d)”, which is what I have just read, “if that disclosure is in the public interest”—and I do not think that is too hard to defend—“and it relates to public health, public safety or the protection of the environment”. Lo and behold, the environment is being destroyed by the offshore trawlers. It is well documented. Our resources are being depleted. Yet this minister refuses to disclose the reports.

I again commend the hon. member for bringing forward this private member's bill. Information is vital to members of public. They pay for it. They have a right to it. Yet we have a minister who wants to offer information in confidence. He continues to say “I will give it to you in an in camera session”. I want to emphasize that it is not me who wants this information, it is the public. It not only wants it, it has a right to it.

We have to move forward to make sure the public is allowed to obtain this information. Even his own colleague, the hon. member for Gander—Grand Falls, recognizes the vital importance of this information and was condemning this minister for withholding these documents from the Canadian public.

Yes, the minister has offered an in camera session. The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is now drafting a report. We will be making recommendations to the government on the state of the east coast fisheries.

We are about to table the report. It is in its final stages. The information is overwhelming with respect to the offshore fishery. I think that will be well noted. That is why we are after this. We are after this for the interests of Canadians and fishermen. Nobody has a personal private agenda, which we have been accused of. We are here to represent the people of Canada, whose tax dollars paid to train these observers. They paid for them yet they are not allowed to see what is going on. It is absolutely appalling.

I have another example. I have a constituent who, unfortunately, is the widow of one of our military personnel, Master Corporal Rick Wheller, who was killed during a military exercise in April 1992. It was a very sad accident. For over five years since his death his widow Christina has attempted to obtain truthful answers from DND regarding the circumstances and the safety regulations. Again this has to do completely with access to information. She has made numerous requests and has been promised these reports. The reports she has received had missing pages, blanked out information, and the list goes on and on. I could go through the dates she has been there and the promises. She was promised a report last December by senior officials of the department. They will not release it. To date, she has not received this information. It is an absolute disgrace.

This widow of one of our military people wants to know what happened to her husband. It is five years later and the minister will not release the information. She still does not have it. It is an absolute disgrace.

Taxpayers want this information. It is access to information. I commend the member for introducing legislation that, if anything, will go further in making sure these records are not destroyed and are protected. We have seen incidents where they have been shredded or have gone missing. It is very important that the public has access.

Those are just a few examples. Without all the facts we are not able to provide solutions to this crisis. We are looking for solutions. We are trying to stand up for the taxpayers. We want a government that knows what is good for Canadians and their children.

Bill C-208 proposes to amend the Access to Information Act. It would provide sanctions against persons who destroy or falsify government records.

I have just given two examples of this. I have been fighting with the minister of fisheries to get a public document. He wants to stand behind the very act we are talking about. Shamefully he will not give us the information. I have spoken to many people and they all agree it is in the public interest and is destroying the environment. Now we have an act that is giving the minister discretion.

It states that the minister may. I would like to amend it further to state the minister must. Now we have an act that gives the minister of fisheries and any other minister discretion on what they would like to release.

At least this bill will ensure the information is not destroyed. I hope all my colleagues are listening. This boils down to information the public pays for and is entitled to. We should ensure that the safeguard of this information is fundamental. We should stand up and fight for people who have a right to what they pay for.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-208, an act to amend the Access to Information Act.

I would first like to point out that the entire matter of access to information is of special interest to me. This is why I eagerly accepted the invitation of my Bloc Quebecois colleagues to speak to this bill.

On December 1 last year, I spoke in this House in favour of another bill, Bill C-216, which was also intended to amend the Access to Information Act by broadening its application to include crown corporations. At the time, I read a variety of documents on the application of the Access to Information Act and I noted, like a number of us today, that it requires certain amendments to ensure that it serves the intentions of its authors.

I would like to let the member for Brampton West—Mississauga know that the Bloc Quebecois supports the bill she introduced, since it improves the Access to Information Act by providing severe penalties for certain infractions. The act we are dealing with today was passed in 1982, and it came into effect the following year.

It gives Quebeckers and Canadians the right to access information recorded in any form whatsoever, for the most part relating to government institutions with a few important exceptions I have already listed, Crown corporations in particular.

Like our fellow citizens, we as members of Parliament regularly make use of the Access to Information Act to obtain more information on how our institutions operate. That act constitutes an invaluable tool in our work and provides numerous answers for our constituents.

Bill C-208 represents an interesting advance, an improvement to the act, by penalizing severely anyone who attempts to destroy or falsify documents, or neglects to retain them. The penalty for such offences would be a maximum imprisonment of five years and/or a maximum fine of $10,000.

You will agree with me that these are worthwhile amendments, since they represent an unequivocal sanction of any person attempting to flaunt the Access to Information Act.

It has been much said that the Access to Information Act is a toothless piece of legislation that does not meet today's requirements. None other than the present Privacy Commissioner, John Grace, is among the critics. The Privacy Commissioner has a variety of concerns, but where the object of this bill is concerned, he has spoken out strongly against the lax enforcement of the Access to Information Act.

After seven years of observation in his capacity as Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Grace has drawn some very worthwhile conclusions for the purposes of our examination. In particular, he points out that it lacks effective enforcement mechanisms. In his 1995-96 annual report, he lists three serious incidents which serve as typical examples of someone's blocking the right of access to government documents by destroying or falsifying documents, or by camouflaging them.

Three departments were involved: Transport Canada, National Defence and Health Canada. In each case, public servants falsified documents, or simply destroyed them. I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but I think the commissioner's discoveries are but the tip of the iceberg.

His 1996-97 annual report on the tainted blood scandal sounded the alarm on a number of terrible cases. The general remarks of the information commissioner on the act he applies are not, therefore, surprising. Allow me to read you his remarks, which summarize our position on the question, and I quote:

The access law has proved itself toothless to respond in any punitive way beyond exposing the wrongdoing. While exposure is far from being entirely ineffective, some penalty provisions in the access law are overdue. Nothing should focus the mind of any would-be record destroyer more than one conviction or one penalty levied upon a public official for such behaviour.

While we support the amendments to the Access to Information Act in Bill C-208, I have to say they do not go far enough.

In his latest annual report, the information commission revealed that a number of offences were the responsibility of senior officials, who used their authority to have their subordinates destroy or falsify documents. In all fairness, the distinction should be made between the person doing the act and the person making the decision, and this distinction is not provided for in Bill C-208.

Furthermore, in addition to the destruction or falsification of a document, provision should be made for the fact that ordering destruction or falsification of a document or using the threat of reprisal against a person who refuses to obey such orders constitute offences.

These are other situations not covered in the bill to which we are giving our full attention today. The maximum sentence of five years for an offence as provided for in the bill is consistent with the recommendations made by the information commissioner in his 1996-97 annual report.

By making it a criminal offence for anyone to commit such an act, we are adding a dissuasive force that should be enough to make a number of potential offenders think twice.

Despite the good points raised in Bill C-208, broader reflection is required if the necessary improvements are to be made to the Access to Information Act.

To this end, we hope to have the opportunity eventually to discuss Bill-286, which suggests a broader reform, with particular attention to falsification and destruction of documents and to access to confidences of the Privy Council, which is also accountable to the people of Quebec and of Canada.

The Access to Information Act is like a jewel without a box. As the information commissioner put it, legislation considered toothless is rapidly depleted of content, if not totally cast aside.

It is high time that we, as parliamentarians, take action before it is too late. Let us not wait for several more reports from the information commissioner before introducing the necessary amendments to the Access to Information Act. And the reason we must do this, even though all these amendments will have no real impact without a stronger institutional will, expressed at the highest echelons of the federal administration, is so that the act as implemented will embody its underlying ideals.

I therefore urge all parliamentarians to support Bill C-208.

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-208, to amend the Access to Information Act.

I begin by commending my colleague, the member for Brampton West—Mississauga. She has done us all a great service in raising this issue and bringing the bill before the House. By all I mean not only the people in the House of Commons but the people of Canada. It gives us an opportunity to talk about the importance of access to information, access to information legislation and having a access to information commissioner. The flip side is the protection of personal privacy and the regime that we put in place for making sure that we have openness and transparency in government.

As a member of the Ontario legislature I was proud to be part of a government which in 1985, as its very first piece of legislation, brought forward the access to information and protection of personal privacy legislation. It was a first for the province of Ontario. From that experience I know that no piece of legislation is ever perfect. The only thing that is ever carved in stone, unlike the wonderful ice and snow sculptures on our front lawn, are the gargoyles in this beautiful Chamber.

Legislation is living and it must be reviewed from time to time. My colleague has brought forward an important issue. The people of Canada not only deserve and need to know what government is doing, but government needs to know that it has an obligation to give information. Government is not only the elected officials. Government is those people who work in the bureaucracy and public service. It has an obligation to ensure that the public is made to know and has access to that which is in the public interest.

We know there have some problems. Certain events during the Somalia and blood inquiry have drawn to the public attention the fact the Access to Information Act contains no penalty for the destruction of information. That is what this piece of legislation is about. It proposes that an infraction be added to the existing act.

My own personal commitment to freedom of information and access to information should be unquestioned. On September 30 I raised the issue in a question to the President of the Treasury Board who has responsibility for access to information in the Government of Canada. I raised a question because of a report that had been tabled by the access to information commissioner.

My concern was that in his report the access to information commissioner also identified problems. One problem he identified was the lack of timely access. It was taking too long to get the information after a request was made.

Another thing that he identified was the concern that often it was the identity of the requester which determined whether or not the information was going to be given. In other words, who was asking for the information was a part of the judgment in the decision as to whether or not the information could be released in the public interest.

I believe these are problems. I do not think it should matter who is asking for the information. If it is possible to release the information and protect the personal privacy requirements of the legislation, the information should be made available regardless of who is asking.

I would hope we see an amendment to the access to information legislation as it exists today. It might be possible to amend the bill to include the policy that already exists in the privy council office where the identity of the requester, the identity of the individual or the organization asking for the information, is protected. It is not known in the minister's office or in the senior bureaucratic offices who is asking for the information when the decision is made about release of the information.

That is a very good policy. I hope we see it either transformed into an actual part of the statute or a regulation that could accompany the statute. However I certainly believe it should be the policy of every government that it does not matter who is requesting the information.

I also believe that timeliness is very important. Delayed information should not be used as a way of limiting the public's right to know those things. It has a legitimate right to have that information.

I am also very strong on the protection of individual and personal privacy. It is a value that I hold dear and that I believe in. In the information technology age it is a challenge to have access to the information we need to do the research we do at the same time as protecting an individual's right to privacy.

I do not believe the right to privacy is absolute. Nothing in this world or in the House is ever clearly black and white. I have said often I think we live in a world where there are shades of grey. Sometimes there is a legitimate public policy reason why we should have the ability to determine available information.

For example, I had a call from a constituent who was very upset because she had filled out a customs form and as a result had been informed by the employment insurance office that she had collected employment insurance illegally. She had left the country on holiday for a few weeks. When she returned she was a good citizen and filled in the customs form.

I told her that the people of Canada believe people who are out of the country on holiday should not be eligible to collect employment insurance benefits. That is a correct policy. I also think it is appropriate for the department of revenue to share information about people who have left the country. In the name of good practice and more than good practice but effective use of the resources of individuals, taxpayers want to know the laws are being obeyed and upheld. I believe it was appropriate for that information to be shared between departments.

The bill before us today is supportable in principle but I have a few problems with it. As I said, no piece of legislation is ever perfect. I would like to offer one of the problems I have with the bill.

Under the existing Criminal Code offences are defined by three categories. There is a summary conviction offence which carries the lightest penalty. Then there are indictable offences which carry the heaviest penalty and allow a person to elect trial by judge or jury. Then there is the hybrid offence.

In this piece of legislation the member has chosen the indictable offence route. Given the state of the courts in the provinces my concern is that with indictable offence we would see our courts further clogged.

The access to information legislation is under review by the Treasury Board and by the Department of Justice. I hope they take into consideration as part of the review the issues I have raised and most particularly the issue raised by my colleague from Brampton West—Mississauga.

There should be an offence for the destruction of documents. As a result of this debate and the support in principle I would have for the legislation I hope we see changes to make our Access to Information Act better so that the people of Canada and the public interest could be well served. I compliment my colleague.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-216, an act to amend the Access to Information Act and specifically crown corporations. I certainly commend my colleague from Nanaimo—Alberni who presented the bill to the House. He has shown leadership. I also commend to Theresa Stele who has done an enormous amount of work on the issue.

Bill C-216 is long overdue. Repeatedly in the House the issue has come up. In fact it has been debated ad nauseam. But have we found any changes? No, we have not. Why? Because this government and government before it have repeatedly demonstrated a lack of any political will and therefore integrity in their desire to make crown corporations more transparent.

As we can see today from the widespread acceptance we have in the House, the nature of the bill has found acceptance among members of Parliament across party lines and among members of the public. The public wants value for money in part by making sure that the money it gives to government to spend on its behalf is going where it should be going.

The bill will help to do that by ensuring that one will be able to see behind the veil that surrounds crown corporations currently and ensure that access to information exists.

The Access to Information Act applies to many other aspects of government. It is a cornerstone of democracy. It is as unfathomable to me as it is to other members of the House to know why access to information has not been applied to crown corporations.

There are a litany of crown corporations, everything from Canada Post Corporation to the Canadian Development and Investment Corporation, the Canadian National Railway, the Export Development Corporation—

[Colleen Beaumier, Liberal, Brampton West—Mississauga, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like some clarification. This debate is on Bill C-208 and I heard the hon. member mention Bill C-216.

Could I have some clarification as it is not really germane to Bill C-208?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

We will continue the debate on Bill C-208.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Bill C-208 it is, Madam Speaker. The nature of the subject matter has not changed. Just the number of the bill.

As I was saying, the public demands a window into crown corporations. Some of them are operating efficiently. Some are not. The public has a right to know which are and which are not. Also the employees who work long and hard in these crown corporations have a right to know that they are working in an organization that can be as efficient as it can be. They have a right to know that their organization can perhaps be operating more efficiently and to know where waste is occurring.

If we bring that about, the government must clearly understand that everybody will win. The public will win. The employees will win. The House will win. We will be enabled to rectify problems before they get out of hand and improve the efficiency of these corporations. It begs the larger question as to why some crown corporations are not privatized, but that we shall leave for another day.

Access to information should also be occurring in a timely fashion. According the rules of the House and the access to information in our system, the government and the institution in question have an obligation to answer within 30 days. However, I would venture to say that if government members have the same frustration we have the 30 days do not occur. In fact repeated stonewalling takes place time and time again.

I will mention one particularly egregious situation within the ministry of aboriginal affairs. Members from aboriginal communities come to us as members of Parliament, asking us to investigate situations on their reserves that at times are extremely serious. We have an obligation and a desire to ensure that moneys are spent where they are supposed to and that moneys go to where they are intended, particularly in aboriginal communities where moneys are allocated for counsellors, teachers, health, medication and schools. Anybody in the public would want to make sure moneys go where they are supposed to go.

When questions arise concerning moneys not going to where they are supposed to go, aboriginal grassroots people come to us if they are unable to get information from the leaderships in their communities. We ask for information but the information is rarely forthcoming in a timely fashion and sometimes does not get to us at all.

Who pays the price, I would venture to say, to protect some people? Who pays the price for the failure to investigate these situations? It is the grassroots people who we are trying to help, the people who are in need.

I cannot understand for a moment why ministers would fail to answer a request for information made with the intent of trying to help the people most in need. They should take it as a clue that there may be problems and want to investigate it with the most vigour they can.

Instead of addressing these problems and investigating with the greatest amount of vigour, we see subterfuge, we see obfuscation, we see a lack of answers. This process is an injustice to the people who need the answers. It is an injustice to this House and the Canadian public.

I can only ask that this government for once demonstrate leadership that other governments have failed to do on this issue. In doing so it will clearly demonstrate to the Canadian public a strong desire and commitment to improve crown corporations, to make them more efficient, to show an intense responsibility to the Canadian taxpayer and for the taxpayer's money.

The government will win by adopting Bill C-208. It will demonstrate to all members in this House a desire to finally listen to the backbenchers, to finally listen to the good ideas that come from members across this House and across party lines that this country can be a better place for all Canadians.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this important debate.

Bill C-208 is an act to amend the Access to Information Act. Incidentally, it makes no reference to crown corporations. The intent of these amendments is to provide sanctions against anyone who improperly destroys or falsifies government records in an attempt to deny access to information under the Access to Information Act.

I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga for her efforts in putting this bill forward. This caucus agrees with the sentiments expressed in the bill.

The Access to Information Act was proclaimed 15 years ago. In an earlier speech the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga said “in the 14 years since its inception, government bureaucracy has been sabotaging the intent of the act”.

As I reviewed the files in preparation for my remarks today, I came across a yellowed document from 13 years ago. It is a copy of a presentation made to a national forum on access to information by Ken Rubin from Ottawa. He is extremely well known for his efforts regarding access to information. An Order of Canada should be struck for him someday because he has played a very important role in the history of access to information. Mr. Rubin worked to get the Access to Information Act which he has used very well to ferret out information from government departments.

In his remarks Mr. Rubin said “Users of access to information must suffer for this rare privilege by being put through all kinds of hurdles and rules that emphasize information hide and seek”. I have other clippings that document the frustration that our information commissioners have had in trying to pry public information out of unwilling government departments and agencies.

These cases of departmental stonewalling and obstructions are one thing but recently the situation has become more serious. It is by now completely obvious that certain government departments and agencies have both destroyed and falsified information covered by the Access to Information Act.

Canadians know that defence department officials have altered documents relating to the Somalia inquiry. We also know that health officials have destroyed records on the tainted blood tragedy. This is clearly intolerable in our democracy.

The current information officer, Mr. John Grace, has called on the federal government to punish civil servants who intentionally destroy documents to avoid telling the truth to the public. This is the intention of the bill as we understand it.

I want to make it clear that I am not saying that many, most or all civil servants have been involved in any kind of document tampering or destruction. I also understand that in the Somalia case this destruction of documents occurred because senior officials ordered it done. But there certainly have been incidents.

We must admit that information which is the property ultimately of the people of Canada, information that they have paid for and continue to pay for through their taxes, information that they have the right to see has been wantonly destroyed.

In conclusion, we wish to make it clear that this practice should not be tolerated any further and that the hon. member's bill is an important step in that direction.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise today on the act to amend the Access to Information Act, Bill C-208.

I am sure that this is one of the most important tools we have to work with as members of Parliament to help us access information which is not readily available in other circumstances, not only us, but corporations and individuals throughout the country. It is the key to the confidence in our system and it also is the key to checks and balances which are so important in a Parliament like this one where government does have an awful lot of control over all information and can hold it back should it decide to. This gives us access to it.

Speaking of access to information, I tried to find out to whom the access to information officer reports and I could not get access to the information. It was kind of interesting. I called several offices and I could not find out to whom he answers. Finally I did find out from the Library of Parliament and also a very helpful official in the access to information office that the access to information commissioner actually reports to the President of the Treasury Board and then through the Speaker to Parliament.

I was really concerned about that because recently I tried to access information. I tried to use the services of the ethics commissioner. When I went to a meeting with the ethics commissioner, the first question I asked the commissioner was “What is your term of office and how are you hired?” He said “I am here at the pleasure of the Prime Minister”. I think the results of his conclusions on the question that I asked put him in a conflict of interest because he only keeps his job at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.

I was pleased to learn that at least the access to information commissioner is actually hired by Parliament and voted on. So it is very helpful and gives me a great deal of confidence in the commissioner, as opposed to perhaps the little less confidence I have in the ethics commissioner.

Anyway, back to Bill C-208. It is the shortest bill I have ever seen. The point is very simple. Up until now the access to information bill has had no punishment, it has had no sanction. It has had no way to punish people if they have destroyed, denied access or altered documents or anything. There was no teeth. There was no enforcement.

Bill C-208 provides that deterrent, that enforcement tool. It makes denying information, destroying information or altering information a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment or a $10,000 fine. That is a pretty serious deterrent compared to what is there now. There is no deterrent if an official destroys information or refuses access to someone. There is no sanction. There is no punishment.

This is very timely. We can be sure that if somebody, as they approach the shredder with the document that they should not be shredding, thinks of the five years and the $10,000 penalty, they will think twice about it. It is a very important tool. It does provide us in Parliament with the tools to make sure that the government is accountable, and it gives people confidence in government.

A further amendment that we would like to see, although we are supporting this in the Conservative Party, is an amendment that gives at least limited access to documents of the Privy Council. I realize there are some documents that should not be available and we could not have total access to everything, but there are documents that we would really think are appropriate to have access to through the access to information office.

However, all things considered, the Progressive Conservative Party strongly supports Bill C-208. We congratulate the drafters of this bill. We hope those same people will now move over to the code of ethics amendments and will draft amendments to ensure that the ethics commissioner also has to answer to Parliament instead of having his job at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.

I conclude my remarks by saying that the Conservative Party supports this bill entirely and we will be voting in favour of it.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin my comments by stating that I clearly support the general goal of the bill. I commend my colleague, the hon. member for Brampton West—Mississauga, for introducing it but have a couple of concerns about it.

I have a bit of concern for what the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester said. I admire him to a point, that point being that he does a little research. He made a few calls. Unfortunately the hon. member did not dig far enough.

He alleges that there are no penalties for this kind of action when access to information documents are destroyed. He is correct that there is certainly no argument that events, say Somalia or the blood inquiry, have drawn public attention to the fact that the Access to Information Act contains no penalty and that there is clearly a need for an infraction in the Access to Information Act.

However I went one step further than the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester. I went to the Criminal Code to find out if anything could be done. I had a look at the Criminal Code, specifically section 126, and this is what it states:

Everyone who, without lawful excuse, contravenes an Act of Parliament by wilfully doing anything that it forbids or by wilfully omitting to do anything that it requires to be done is, unless a punishment is expressly provided by law, guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

In other words, section 126 of the Criminal Code might apply to the situation of someone deliberately destroying a document in order to thwart the Access to Information Act, in so far as the destruction would result in the person “wilfully omitting to do anything that it requires to be done”.

Let us have a look for a moment at what my colleague from Brampton West—Mississauga is proposing in Bill C-208 which would amend the Access to Information Act to add an infraction to the act. Specifically the bill states that a person who, with the intent to deny a right of access under this act, destroys or alters a record, or falsifies a record, or makes a false entry in a record, or does not keep required records is guilty of an indictable offence and may be imprisoned for up to five years or fined up to $10,000 or both.

That brings me to my main concern with respect to my colleague's bill. Section 126 creates an indictable offence, which is the most serious type of offence in the Criminal Code. Section 126 often carries a maximum penalty of two years. The seriousness of an indictable offence in section 126 is one of the reasons it might be necessary to add a specific offence to the Access to Information Act. In this case the specific offence of deliberately destroying documents subject to the Access to Information Act should not be quite as serious as an indictable offence with a maximum of two years imprisonment.

That is not what my colleague's bill proposes. It proposes to create a specific offence in the Access to Information Act. This specific offence not only would not carry a lesser maximum penalty than the one attached to the offence in section 126 of which I spoke. It would carry a heavier maximum penalty of five years.

It is important to outline that the Criminal Code slices offences up into three different categories. There are summary convictions, indictable offences and hybrid offences that the crown can elect to prosecute either as an indictable offence or as a summary conviction offence.

Summary conviction offences carry the lightest penalties and indictable offences carry the heaviest. With the hybrid offences the attached penalty depends on the procedure selected by the crown. An important point is that when an accused is prosecuted by indictment, he or she can choose to be tried before a judge and jury, which can be a very slow process. In addition, the accused is entitled to a preliminary inquiry when the offence is indictable.

I understand the hon. member wants to mark the seriousness of the offence by making it an indictable offence, but I would have to ask my colleague if it might also be counterproductive if—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I am sorry. The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate this opportunity in this extended question period to bring up a subject I brought up on December the 4 about responsibility, about accountability and about obligations, that is the federal government's obligation with respect to certain federal-provincial agreements to do with highways in Nova Scotia. It has now extended to New Brunswick since I brought this up in December.

The federal government and the provincial governments sign agreements. When the provincial governments do not honour them, when I raise it in the House, the hon. minister replies all highways are a provincial issue, ask the province. But the fact is this is not about highways. This is about specific federal-provincial agreements.

With respect to this multimillion dollar agreement, it says a management committee shall be established as of the date of execution of this agreement and shall consist of two members, one member appointed by the federal minister, one member appointed by the provincial minister. The management committee will be responsible for administration and management of this agreement. They will review and approve all projects. They will change any projects on schedule B. Annual reports will be approved. Approval of the proposed contracts and their modifications where they affect the financial commitment of the present agreement relating to any projects included in schedule B. It says the decisions of the management committee shall be in writing and shall be acted on only if taken unanimously.

So the management committee is one member from the federal minister's department and one from the province, and all decisions must be unanimous. That means the federal government in this case is responsible on these issues, and again this is a question about accountability, responsibility and obligations.

Since I brought that up in December, the same thing has happened in New Brunswick, and it is exactly the same agreement with the same words. The federal government must acknowledge and must realize its obligation to police this.

In this case, the federal government said it will put 50% of the money into a highway if the province puts 50% in, and it agreed to do that. Now the province has taken its 50% out, which means that 100% of the money provided by government is from the federal government. That changes all the ratios. It changes everything.

I recently got a report from the Department of Transport, the federal department. It says $32,474,270 has been paid on a specific piece of highway between Moncton and Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. That was before the end of March last year. This year they have projected to spend another $5.7 million. That is $38,174,270, and it says right here the money was paid out to somebody to build that highway, but the provincial minister says there is no taxpayer money in it, the highway has never been paid for.

The provincial minister says the money did not go to pay for the highway. He says the highway is not paid for. The federal minister's report card says they paid $38 million to somebody.

Under the terms of this agreement the federal minister is responsible to answer to where the $38 million has disappeared. There is $38 million disappeared. The feds say it went to build the road. The province says it did not go to build the road. But this $38 million cheque went to somebody and we would like the federal minister to take up his obligation in accordance with this agreement which is very clear. He is a member of the management committee. There are only two on it. All decisions must be unanimous and in writing.

So, if $38 million is going to go somewhere—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Order. The time has expired. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, it is really unfortunate that the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester does not recognize a dead end sign when he sees one. In fact, he has not recognized this dead end sign and he smacked right into it a couple of times.

As the minister has stated to the hon. member on this very issue, under the Constitution of Canada the responsibility for provincial highways, including highway 104 in Nova Scotia, falls under provincial jurisdiction.

Transport Canada's only involvement in highway 104 is to match, as the hon. member has stated, dollar for dollar, $55 million with the province. That, for the hon. member's information, is $27.5 million each.

The highway 104 western alignment project is one of a few projects funded through the Transport Canada-Nova Scotia strategic highway improvement program agreement signed in 1993. This agreement makes provisions for both the federal government and the province to each set aside about $70 million for a total of $140 million for highway improvements in Nova Scotia.

I want to repeat for the hon. member, and it is important for the hon. member to recognize this, that this is where Transport Canada's involvement in the highway 104 project ends. The province of Nova Scotia is the responsible authority for this project. It is the province that decides on the alignment, the design, the construction standards, the tendering process and how to finance the construction costs of the provincial system.

Nova Scotia chose to use a public-private partnership concept, and good for it, as a means to construct and finance highway 104 and agreed to allow the developer to charge tolls to the users of the new highway. The federal government is neither a party to nor responsible for Nova Scotia's public-private agreement with the developer. As I stated earlier, the government's only involvement—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, in October I asked the minister about the Liberals' failed Atlantic groundfish strategy or TAGS program.

Canadians had better hope the TAGS program is not typical of Liberal strategic brilliance because if our well-being were to rest on that kind of strategy, we would be in bad shape.

The TAGS program failed miserably to provide a meaningful future for Atlantic fishers. Now just released is the government's post-TAGS review report.

Mr. Harrigan and his team have provided a comprehensive and forthright report. It contains no praise for the government. The report clearly reinforces the scathing comments of Canada's auditor general on the terrible mismanagement of the TAGS program. It also confirms what Canadians in Atlantic Canada have been trying to get through to this government for years. After four years of so-called government assistance, and after spending nearly $2 billion, there remain the same problems today as four years ago, only now with a couple of new ones thrown in.

First, there was supposed to be job training so that fishers could get into new areas of employment. Very little, nearly not as much as was promised, was spent on this job training. In fact, the job training that was done was not linked to any realistic employment opportunities.

Second, there was supposed to be a license buyout to remove capacity from the industry. Virtually none of that was accomplished. Now we have thousands of people dependent on TAGS for income support. We have income support that was promised suddenly being pulled so that people who had planned and had done their financial forecasts on this income are being left in the lurch by a government saying sorry, we know we promised that this program would stay on but now we are not going to do it.

We have a situation where people on TAGS who want to leave the industry to find meaningful work cannot do that. We are not giving any meaningful assistance. The community development projects that were supposed to be funded lacked any kind of realism and failed to use the talents and expertise from the community.

We have a real issue of government ineptness and gross mismanagement not only in the past of the government fishery, but now a lack of vision for meaningful alternatives for those who were affected by the government's incompetence. Here we have both Liberal and past Tory governments politicizing all their decisions and resulting only in waste, inefficiency, personal hardship and loss of personal independence by reducing people to rely on government handouts when they would rather work.

After months to reflect on their failed policies and programs following the loss of the Atlantic fisheries critical resource base, I ask the government whether it has any idea what people's lives are going to look like after the TAGS program is over?

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Madam Speaker, the Atlantic groundfish strategy was designed to cope with an extraordinary situation, a crisis of major proportions. It had to be implemented within very tight time frames at a time when the government was facing severe fiscal constraints.

Under the circumstances, the Minister of Human Resources Development's first priority was to ensure that basic human needs were met, so we directed our efforts at ensuring that individuals who had lost their livelihood and source of income received income support.

On this score TAGS has been successful. More than 40,000 clients were able to count on Human Resources Development Canada to provide them with income support in a timely matter.

Having said that, it is very clear that TAGS was far from a perfect program. With the benefit of hindsight, many things could have been done differently but TAGS has helped Atlantic fishery workers. Some 14,800 TAGS clients have adjusted outside the groundfish fishery and found employment outside the industry. Over 16,000 TAGS clients received job counselling and over 10,000 TAGS clients had the opportunity to improve their job skills through various types of training, including literacy and basic skills improvement.

TAGS is expected to end in August 1998 and the Minister of Human Resources Development has just received a post-TAGS review report prepared by Mr. Harrigan. The objective of Mr. Harrigan's report was to get a sense of how the end of the TAGS program would impact on individuals, families and communities.

This is a very good report that brings out a number of important factors. For instance, it confirms that we cannot have a one size fits all solution. The end of TAGS will have a great impact on some families but very little on others.

As I said, the report gives the government a useful basis for discussion. We look forward to the discussion with the stakeholders in order to come up with a solution for the long term.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6.42 p.m.)