Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House on a special day. This is the 60th anniversary of the London Declaration establishing the Commonwealth and its shared values. Its worthy to be on the record of Parliament today.
On February 26, I asked the Minister of Justice for his response to the access to information commissioner's report card, in which he said that our system was creating a major information management crisis throughout the government. Six of the ten departments that he reported on had failing grades. In fact, four were on a red alert. I also pointed out that this was a 25-year-old act that was hopelessly out of date in the digital age. In fact, to give a perspective, it came in at the time of the Commodore 64.
I wanted to know whether the Minister of Justice was in concurrence with the commissioner and whether he would commit to bring in a bill to fix the crisis we had. I was very disappointed that neither the minister nor a representative of the minister rose to answer the question. In fact, the President of the Treasury Board stood and simply said that the government had brought in the Federal Accountability Act and that it had included more government departments, agencies and crown corporations in there, so everything was fine.
It is not fine. When an officer of Parliament, the Information Commissioner of Canada, says that the system is broken and that we have an information management crisis, we have to take note of that. In fact, our Standing Committee on Access to Information Privacy and Ethics is looking at it right now.
One of the important things the commissioner said was that, under the law, an access to information request should be responded to within 30 days. It does not happen. There is a proviso where they can be extended up to 120 days and even more. In fact, he said that the 30 day requirement under the Access to Information Act was becoming the exception rather than the norm, and that is a problem.
Therefore, he came up with 12 recommendations, which he has presented to our committee. He also supports the detailed recommendations to amend the Access to Information Act presented by his predecessor Mr. Reid. We are still waiting for an answer. This is problematic. We have a situation where the Canada Border Services Agency, the Department of National Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Health Canada, Public Works and the RCMP have all received failing grades on responding to the rights of Canadians to know.
It is extremely important that, when people ask legitimate questions and when an officer of Parliament raises issues, the response of the government should come from the responsible minister, and that is the Minister of Justice. It should not come from the President of the Treasury Board, who simply says that the government did a great job and that it got the job done. The facts are contrary to that assertion. Respect for the House demands an answer to the recommendations of the access to information commissioner.