Mr. Speaker, the public's right to know is one of those fundamental cornerstones in any western democracy. The freedom of information and the flow of information is one of those checks and balances by which we ensure our government is operating the way that we want it. It provides scrutiny and shines the light of day on the operations of government.
I suppose the idea of this newly struck committee is to hopefully pry from the government some of the information about how the Afghan mission is being carried out, to wrestle some of that information from the government that it has been so reluctant to share with Canadians through the normal avenues of recourse, such as the access to information laws.
I wonder if my colleague agrees with me that this particular government seems obsessed with secrecy about the Afghan mission.
I am holding a letter here from the Department of National Defence, an access to information coordinator's letter, telling our critic here that the department wants another 300 days to answer a fairly straightforward question about a press release it sent out recently. This is an additional 300 days to fill a fairly ATI straightforward request.
Will my colleague share his views on the culture of secrecy that the government has adopted?