Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by the parliamentary secretary. Now that we have the official party line from my colleague, what does he really think? I would like to know what his gut feelings are about the freedom of information laws as they affect the larger picture of the health of our democracy.
I did not hear a lot of passion in his comments. They were more technical answers to the specific language in the motion put forward by the Conservative Party. I am wondering if the member shares the passion of other members of Parliament as they spoke about how critically important and vital freedom of information is to the health and well-being of our democratic system and how the paucity of freedom of information has led to the culture of secrecy that has allowed corruption to flourish.
I would like to hear from my colleague in his own words if he shares our view that the single most important thing we could do in these twilight days of the 38th Parliament would be to reform the access to information laws completely so that freedom of information, transparency and accountability are no longer buzzwords in Ottawa, but in actual fact are practised.