This is complete chaos; I did not name anyone. I quoted a person, whom I named. In any case, let us not waste time on this. Let us not make mountains out of molehills. We should be discussing more important things.
That individual was quite right in saying that no witnesses supported the proposal to increase the disclosure level.
On the contrary, those same witnesses, including the Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and the president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, all had plenty to say about the bill and the amendments put forward by the Conservatives. However, none of what was said by the experts was retained by the Conservative majority in the committee.
For example, the Information Commissioner proposed replacing the term “independence” with “activity” after many witnesses insisted that the bill was a threat to journalism and investigative journalism in particular. Obviously, the Conservatives rejected that recommendation.
Then the commissioner issued a very clear plea to the committee, asking it not to add a new exclusion to the assortment of exceptions and exclusions already set out in the bill, because that exclusion would require clarification from the courts. The Conservatives added it anyway.
In this case as well, the Conservatives flatly refused the Information Commissioner and added a new exclusion to the bill for journalistic sources, an exclusion that we know will be completely ineffective, useless and very costly and will not really do anything to protect journalistic sources. On the contrary, it exposes sources and undermines many sources' confidence in CBC journalists.
The stated purpose of the bill was to clarify section 68.1 of the Access to Information Act, which has been the subject of litigation. The bill's sponsor reminded us that that section was not a model of clarity. It is important to remember that that section has already been clarified, not by Parliament, but by the courts. This matter was resolved two years ago, to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
The bill, as it is being presented today, completely reopens this closed file and makes a mockery of the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal decisions. This would be like taking a circular saw to a wound that is just starting to heal. What this means is that a bill that is supposed to be in the taxpayers' interest will in fact cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in new court cases. New definitions will be needed.
The Information Commissioner very clearly said not to add a new exclusion in the bill. She said:
...please consider this: you are going to create another difficult situation if we create another exclusion to an exemption. How that's going to work, I really don't know.
These comments did not come from just anyone. She knows that such a bill will lead to even more litigation and court challenges.
Today, this bill's sponsor recommended that we remove these clauses from the bill, and I commend him for stepping up. We now know that these provisions will cost taxpayers dearly. We know that this bill is very far from being a model of clarity and that it would replace a solution with a problem.
It is not easy for the Conservatives to justify this bill to ensure transparency, when the bill itself is not transparent at all and it will cost taxpayers a fortune.
Although the bill's short title is “CBC and Public Service Disclosure and Transparency Act”, its salary disclosure provisions do not even apply to the president of the CBC, whose salary falls below the disclosure threshold, which the Conservatives just raised by $250,000.
Behind the doors of a committee room in Ottawa, the Conservatives quietly increased the minimum salary disclosure threshold to $444,661. This is 11 times the salary of an average worker in Canada.
I wonder how the Conservatives will justify such a move. How will they explain such a decision to their constituents? What will they tell their party faithful, who have been fighting for years to have the government monitor the public purse and spend carefully, and to make it more transparent and accountable?
Those in this room who support greater transparency, accountability and respect for the public purse, and those who care about doing a good job on this bill as legislators, now know what they have to do.