Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's access to information plan will not strengthen accountability. It will clearly weaken it.
Bill C-2 will actually reduce the amount of information available to the public and increase the government's ability to cover up wrongdoings.
The government's approach to the access to information reforms came as a surprising disappointment to many, including the Information Commissioner.
According to the commissioner's recent report:
No previous government...has put forward a more retrograde and dangerous set of proposals to change the Access to Information Act.
The Prime Minister just makes it up as he goes along, falsely accusing the Information Commissioner of intent to interfere with journalistic freedom instead of acknowledging the shortcomings of his own accountability act.
It is a step backwards and will actually work against openness and transparency. That is certainly not what I call accountability.