Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for my colleague. With regard to the accountability act, he very briefly mentioned the name of the information commissioner.
One of the great problems underlying the sponsorship scandal was the culture of secrecy. That was emphasized by Commissioner Reid of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. He was in fact seeking a major amendment to the access to information legislation, because one effect of the culture of secrecy was that no public servants were keeping any files. Chuck’s office would call Alfonso’s office which would call Jean’s office. There is no paper trail anywhere, nothing.
We are told that the accountability act will carry no amendments to the Access to Information Act. As the parliamentary secretary noted earlier, it is very important that our colleague understand that, even if we want to create a new law so that the people can prosecute the public administration in the name of the king, it must be possible to request records through the Access to Information Act.
If there are no records because a culture of secrecy has been encouraged by the Liberals and maintained by the Conservatives, I do not see how the problem will be resolved, even with an accountability act.