Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on Bill C-206 as I have had some involvement in it in terms of how it got on the order of precedence and came up for debate.
Our party would not argue that there is a real need to review and make changes to the Access to Information Act to make it work better for members of parliament. Our recent experience with the human resources department and its non-compliance with the act gives us great concern about how the issue of access to information is being handled and how members can get the information they need in a timely manner.
The bill proposes some changes that might help. In my view, from the time I originally signed the bill until the bill was put on the order of precedence, it has been substantially softened to obtain the support of a sufficient number of backbench Liberals to get their signatures. That was too bad.
The original intent of the bill was to change the Access to Information Act to open up access to information from crown corporations and to information around the issue of Canadian unity. It was a pretty good change and was important to our members. That was reflected by the number of our members who signed and supported the bill. However, for whatever reasons the sponsor of the bill changed it and got into all the trouble about changing it after getting the 100 signatures.