Mr. Speaker, on April 14, I asked a question of the President of the Treasury Board about why the government was under so much secrecy, why it was refusing to be transparent, as requested under the Access to Information Act. In fact, the Information Commissioner, who was interim at the time, reported that the right of Canadians to timely access to information was at risk of being totally obliterated because delays threatened to render the entire access regime irrelevant in our current information economy. In fact, she said that she had seen “no evidence” of a culture of transparency in the government.
My question as well was prompted by the fact that the Prime Minister's chief of staff had refused to provide a response to the House ethics committee as to whether political staff had intervened with access to information requests to stop information from being released.
At the time, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board assured the House that the government was working to improve its numbers on responding to access to information requests within 30 days. However, the critical problems of censorship, secrecy and blocking the release of information have only escalated in recent weeks.
The Prime Minister made a commitment to an open, transparent government when he campaigned in the last federal election. However, it is impossible to find any area of his administration where that commitment is indeed being upheld. The Prime Minister prorogued his government to avoid testimony concerning allegations of torture of Afghan detainees. Despite countless requests, he refuses to tell Canadians why he fired a cabinet minister and referred the matter to the RCMP.
The Prime Minister has muzzled staff members, blocking their appearances at committees and the delivery of a subpoena to political staff has been blocked, including to the PM's director of communications. The bailiff has been prevented from entering offices in order to do his duty.
Withholding information appears to be the top priority for the Conservative government. Canadians want to know what the government is trying to hide. The recent report of the Information Commissioner, “Out of Time”, indicates that access to information processing times have exploded under the government. The law says that access to information requests are supposed to be completed within 60 days, however, nearly 60% of requests take up to 120 days to complete under the government. A full 13% of them take more than 121 days.
For example, the March 2008 access to information request by the National Liberal Caucus Research Bureau for all documents concerning Canada's decision to stop Afghan detainee transfers was denied in December 2009, a staggering 639 days later, only after the issue had become a full-blown political controversy for the Conservative government.
As well, a senior aide to the former public works minister stopped the release of a sensitive 137 page document that had been requested by the media. The aide ordered officials to unrelease the report after the access to information office at Public Works had already determined that there was no legal base for withholding it. What the media got instead, 82 days later than allowed under the law, was a heavily censored version that had been reduced to 30 pages. The House ethics committee's efforts to question the senior aide about his actions have not been able to proceed, as the Conservative government has barred staff members from appearing at parliamentary committees.
Canadians have a right to information. The Conservative government has an obligation to be responsible and responsive to requests—