Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the people of Okanagan—Coquihalla to speak to Bill C-206, an act to amend the Access to Information Act.
I believe strongly that transparency in government is a laudable goal. Unfortunately, I do not think this bill does exactly what the member intended it to do.
A few years ago, in the 35th parliament, I introduced a bill in the House, Bill C-263, which was an act to change the Financial Administration Act that would bring into the Financial Administration Act the seven crown corporations that are exempt from following the rules of the FAA. We saw at that time that the government was not interested at all in the transparency and openness of that particular bill, as it failed in Private Members' Business as well.
When the Access to Information Act was first implemented 18 years ago, it was an important step toward the development of our democracy. It actually allowed Canadian citizens the opportunity to legally compel the federal government to provide them with information; not that the federal government has ever complied with this. I am sure every member in the House can testify to the fact that trying to obtain information from the government is and extremely difficult and frustrating exercise.
For instance, I recently placed an access to information request before the human resources department for information on grants and contributions in the riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla. I was expecting to receive the information that I had requested through the act, but instead of the information, I received an invoice from human resources. Human resources officials asked me for $11,713.80 to cover searching fees. That is the kind of freedom of information that we have in this country.
Human resources officials calculated they would need almost 1,200 hours at $10 an hour to find the files on grants and contributions that I had requested. One would think if the government was in charge of managing grants and contributions, information would be easily accessible and available to a member of parliament, but it was not. This is a strong indication of gross mismanagement by the minister of this department.
When I heard that the member for Wentworth—Burlington had reintroduced his private member's bill amending the information act, I assumed that the member wanted to tackle some serious impediments Canadians have in getting information from the federal government. After reviewing this bill, I must tell the House that I was very surprised and extremely disappointed to see what this bill actually proposes.
To me, this looks like a government bill by stealth because the intent of this bill is to make it actually more difficult for Canadians to get information from the federal government. Bill C-206 proposes 40 substantial amendments that alter the nature of the current bill in a regressive manner. The information commissioner has expressed his concern over the extent of what the member is trying to accomplish. My concerns with the key proposals in this bill are as follows.
Bill C-206 proposes to exclude access to what it calls frivolous and abusive users of ATI. This is an extraordinary amendment to legislation dealing with openness. I think Canadians want to know who is going to decide which frequent user requests are frivolous. Will the government itself do this?
Many MPs are frequent users because they rely on ATI to acquire real information from the federal government. From what I can see, this bill is the Liberal government's attempt to block information to opposition MPs through proxy. Furthermore, this supposed private member's initiative intends to control users further by charging frequent users higher fees, something I recently experienced. Now the government wants to charge fees higher than $11,000 to a member of parliament who is doing the work constituents have asked him or her to do. This is absolutely outrageous.
The intent of access to information legislation is to allow Canadians an opportunity to acquire information from an overly secretive federal government. Many individuals are forced to frequently request information because departments attempt to exclude information from their request. The only way they can receive the information is to reframe the wording of the request, then resubmit it.
A further restriction found in this bill is a section that gives the government the ability to deny access to information that could damage national unity. It also includes a section that allows the government to withhold records injurious to the constitutional integrity of Canada for 30 years.
To make matters worse, this bill proposes to include cabinet confidences such as minutes of meetings to be excluded from public access for a time period of 20 years. It also broadens the definition of what constitutes a cabinet confidence, making it more difficult for Canadian citizens, in this case historians and political scientists, from accessing the information they need for their work.
Further, the member for Wentworth—Burlington has reinforced the access to information exemption enjoyed by crown corporations such as the Export Development Corporation, Canada Post and Atomic Energy. Sections like this make it clear that this is a Liberal government bill in disguise. The member for Wentworth—Burlington should be ashamed for acting as a surrogate for a bill that has the Prime Minister and the Privy Council written all over it.
The sole intent of Bill C-206 is to impede the rightful and legal access Canadians have to information from the federal government. Many would argue that the current legislation governing ATI is too restrictive. The Liberal government exploits every roadblock available and even bends the current law to the breaking point to ensure Canadians do not get information they have requested.
We need to look no further than the Somalia inquiry to see how the government manipulates the current law to deny Canadians access to information.
Less than 5% of private members' bills pass the House. Most are rejected by the Liberal government, which takes private members' best points as its own and writes its own bills.
The Liberals want what is in Bill C-206, but do not want to claim ownership because they do not want Canadians to know that they initiated legislation which would deny Canadians the right to federal government information. Canadians should be aware that this is a bill written by the privy council and disguised under the name of the member for Wentworth—Burlington.
It is my prediction that this bill will be one of the few private members' bills that passes this House, simply because of the majority on the Liberal side.
When the effects of this bill are felt, do not thank the member for Wentworth—Burlington, thank our Prime Minister.