No, I do not think that. I think it is the absolute truth. Having got into this issue since sitting on a subcommittee of the procedure and House affairs committee, we are the midst of studying the entire process of 100 named sponsors of a bill. It is becoming more clear that the whole system of 100 names to force a bill on to the order of precedence is not working, probably never will and will have to be scrapped. Then we will have to go back to the traditional lottery draw on bills.
This process has been in place for some time now. This is the first bill that has ever been in the House under the process of the 100 signatures. There are nine other bills on the order of precedence with 100 signatures waiting to come on. The truth is that any member who wishes to have a private member's bill debated in the House statistically has a better chance of getting it drawn in the lottery and debated than he or she would by getting the 100 signatures. I am sure that the system will not work.
As many of our members said and as the member who sponsored the bill said, being one of the 100 signatories to the bill means nothing more than that we thought the issue should be debated in the House of Commons. If that is all it means, why would a member not sign any other member's bill to come to the House?
The intent of the 100 signature rule was that if there were extraordinary issues the government refused to deal with which the general public or opposition members felt warranted serious debate, there should be a process by which the bill could be brought to the House. That was the purpose of the 100 signature rule. If it means nothing more than a member signifying a willingness to debate the issue in the House by signing the bill then the process is not achieving the purpose everyone envisioned it might and should be scrapped.
I guess the subcommittee will make its recommendations and some time in the future the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will make its decision to either change it to make the process meaningful in some way or scrap it and go back to the lottery draw where a certain number of bills are drawn. Then, if we are lucky enough to have our bills drawn, we get to debate them. Probably that is the fairest system and probably why it evolved over the years.
I am surprised it does not appear that the government will support the bill in its present form even after the member softened the bill to get support of the government backbenchers and to get the 100 signatures. The member has been chirping away over there, but he has to remember that we have a $100 bet that this bill will actually be proclaimed into law. In fact, if the government is not supporting the bill, I think my money is a pretty sure thing.
Maybe the 100 or 113 people who supported and signed the bill were simply supporting the concept that there would be an extensive review of the Access to Information Act, with substantive changes made so that we could get information, particularly on crown corporations and other organizations that are arm's length from government, that is not now available through access to information.
I have heard from my constituents about some of their experiences dealing with access to information. Under the Access to Information Act a person can apply for information and remain anonymous even to the people from whom they are acquiring the information.
A small businessman in my riding got a notice from the information office that someone had applied for some very privileged information on his business, information that would have put him in a non-competitive position if it was released. He objected strongly to the release of that information but was told by the office of the information commissioner that it had overruled his objections and had released the information anyway. The office told him that it had no obligation to reveal the name of the person who was asking for that information and that if he objected he had access to the courts to protect himself.
A process where one has to hire a lawyer and go through a court to protect privileged information about one's business seems to be a strange process. This to me does not seem reasonable. People should be able to protect information about their business or at least be apprised of who is looking for that information and why when the office asks if they are willing to let that information go. It is very difficult to understand why anyone would let any information go when the content of the request is not known.
I believe there are some real problems for us as opposition members in getting information in a timely manner and within the rules. Our constituents also have major problems dealing with access to information and want some changes. Unfortunately I do not think the bill goes nearly far enough to solve those problems.