Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent question. This is in fact a member whose questions are always excellent because, I should point out, he always cuts to the chase.
I would like to bring up an element of the Conservative election platform which said—and please listen to this and try not to die laughing:
A Conservative government will... Implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.
Some of us do find it hard not to laugh when hearing such a statement because that is not really what the government is doing right now. This is absurd. I think that in fact what the people of Quebec and Canada really feel like doing is to cry, especially since that was an election promise. There is nothing worse than a broken promise to cause the public to lose confidence in a person or an organization. The fact is that people lose confidence in any organization, group or political party that breaks commitments. It is written in black and white:
A Conservative government will... Implement the Information Commissioner's recommendations for reform of the Access to Information Act.
That commitment was made in November. A mere six months later, here is the deal, as we found out at committee yesterday: this government has no intention of reforming the Access to Information Act. The Minister of Justice nonchalantly told the committee about some existential angst, some concern of his about the Information Commissioner's transparency legislation, thus asking that we think it over and submit a few more reports to him.
That does not work. It is clear that this government lacks political will. It is also clear that the Conservatives do not want any transparency in their government. I would just ask that they make perhaps a bit of an effort to “transparently” admit it. Let them come out and say that they do not want the Access to Information Act to be upgraded. They should just say so. It would make life much easier. No one would waste their time and everyone would then be able to start off in a new direction.