Mr. Speaker, the response is as follows: a) Canada Post Corporation provided a response to Question No. 37. As noted in the government’s response to the Auditor General on order paper questions, the government is considering under what circumstances crown corporations can or should be compelled to provide information of a commercially sensitive nature in response to order paper questions. More information on the issue is outlined in the response to part d) below.
b) The Ethics Commissioner is charged with this responsibility and as an officer of Parliament has responded directly to the member of Parliament on this element of the question.
c) The government will ensure that an audit is undertaken after the changes to the order paper questions process announced in February 2004 and the Auditor General’s recommendations of November 2004 have been in place for a sufficient period of time to produce valid audit results. The audit would therefore likely be performed in the summer of 2006. In keeping with government practice, once the internal audit is completed, it will be posted on the appropriate government web site.
d) The government has studied this matter in the context of the review of the governance framework for Canada’s crown corporations. It recognizes the need to strike a balance between making relevant information more readily accessible to parliamentarians and the general public, and the protection of critical interests of crown corporations including commercially sensitive information holdings.
The report on the “Review of the Governance Framework for Canada’s Crown Corporations”, which the President of the Treasury Board tabled in the House of Commons on February 17, 2005, committed the government to take action to improve the disclosure of information by crown corporations. This includes: the requirement that crown corporations hold annual public meetings; guidance to crown corporations to increase disclosure of non-financial information in annual reports; formal certification of financial statements by the chief executive officers of crown corporations; and amendments to relevant legislation to allow the Auditor General to audit and conduct special examinations in all crown corporations.
The Access to Information Act is built on the principle that Canadians have a right of access to government information. In the report on the “Review of the Governance Framework for Canada’s Crown Corporations”, the government announced its intention to extend the application of the act to10 of the 18 crown corporations currently not covered by the act, bringing the total to 38 out of 46 crown corporations. The government indicated that seven more will be brought under the act once appropriate amendments are developed. The eighth crown corporation, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, is not included at this time as its inclusion under the Access to Information Act will require provincial consent. As a result, all crown corporations will soon be subject to an established, fair, standardized disclosure regime with built in appeal mechanisms that already applies to government departments and agencies.
e) Officials from the Office for the Coordination of Parliamentary Returns, Privy Council Office, have met with officials from the Journals Branch of the House of Commons to determine the appropriate way to include the appendix of instructions provided to government organizations in the overall government response to written order paper questions. The government agrees that when the Office for the Coordination of Parliamentary Returns issues instructions to government organizations to assist them to interpret a question in a consistent manner, these instructions will be tabled along with the government’s response for written questions placed on the notice paper beginning on April 4, 2005.
