Mr. Speaker, I listened to the parliamentary secretary's speech, which was full of very good information, but not one word of it had to do with the Liberal opposition day motion we are talking about today.
The fact of the matter is that the government has been hiding information from the House on a consistent basis for a long time. Last year, it argued about the release of Afghan detainee documents on the basis of national security. The government had to be dragged kicking and screaming and we had to have a Speaker's ruling on the issue before the government would comply. Now it would like us to believe that somehow the cost of tax credits and of a public safety bill is a national security issue as well.
The question is why is the government trying to hide this information? The government clearly has it, because Mary Campbell, the director general of the Corrections and Criminal Justice Directorate, Public Safety Canada, at the committee hearings just two nights ago on Bill C-59, indicated that she had the information but that the government would not let her give it out.
The question is, why is the government afraid of letting this information out? Does it think it is going to be embarrassing? Does it think it is going to change people's minds against the crime bill?
Is its strategy to make certain that the information does not get out until after an election? Is that what its strategy really is all about?