Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the remarks of the member for Elk Island because, as it happens, from the last parliament I remember the interest he expressed in the Access to Information Act and the initiatives he made.
He touches on a point that I do not think we can emphasize enough in this House and that is for opposition MPs, for backbench MPs, for MPs to do their jobs well, which is to question government whether on this side or on that side. But to question the operation of government we must have legitimate access to the documents of government.
We cannot have accountability without transparency. We are all agreed on this side of the House that we are about to make the correct move in the person we are putting forward as the new access to information commissioner.
I know the member for Elk Island will agree with me that surely the next step is to seriously review the current Access to Information Act because it has become old. It has become obsolete. There are too many ways to get around it.
I suggest to the member for Elk Island that the problems he has cited as examples in his remarks on his experiences with the Access to Information Act had nothing to do with the current commissioner or the past commissioner. They had to do with inadequacies in the act. The bureaucracy in interpreting the act interpreted the act honestly and correctly, we presume. Nevertheless the member opposite did not get the information he needed to have to ask questions in the House which I presume were relevant to all Canadians.
Does the member not agree that it is in the interest of everyone in the House, on the government benches, the front benches, the backbenches and in every opposition seat, to move now to review, to correct and to renew the Access to Information Act?