Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her question.
After having gone through the same delay at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we unfortunately had a double debate. The government was in a hurry to have Bill C-2 studied by another committee so that it could be passed while at the same time talking about transparency and accountability. The Access to Information Act is extremely important in this great debate.
The Access to Information Act helps the general public and the media access information. Information of this kind was missing, by the way, at the time of sponsorship scandal.
If people had had enough information, there might never have been a scandal. However, the Access to Information Act goes back at least 23 years and has never been thoroughly overhauled. There have been problems, therefore, and to some extent, deficiencies in the act are to blame. The general public feels that it did not have the means to protect itself.
We really wonder why the government did not wait for all the information to come in. The President of Treasury Board told us that they must consult further before proceeding. I think there was plenty of time previously for consultations on everything in Bill C-2. It is really a shame.
Among other things, there was an amendment of—