Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments on the tome that we are now debating. I would like him to explore a couple of places where I did not hear much commentary and that is with respect to access to information.
We spent time on the environment committee last year trying to understand the plans of the government of the day around climate change. We are unfortunately in the same scenario now. We are left with no plans whatsoever from the current government other than some George Bush inspired made in Canada plan.
When I look through this massive document with all sorts of opportunity and extensive consultation that the parliamentary secretary referred to, the access to information component of this proposal is so thin as to be insulting. Many of those groups that were consulted by the government have publicly declared since the issuance of this bill that the access to information is not substantive, is not substantial enough in order to find out the information that MPs need to do their work, that average citizens need to strengthen their requests for information from the government, and not receive those requests back as we did under his former government, unfortunately, with massive blackouts in the documents. There was a great inability to actually access the information required to make sound judgments about the way the government was heading.
Canadians need to know whether he and his party support the level and depth of access to information reforms that are listed here or not.