Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the bill today, calling for more accountability and transparency at the CBC. We will try to keep it to the facts and try to look at the bill on the surface of what it is trying to accomplish.
I do not see it as the bogeyman the NDP points it out to be, but we have to make sure there are protections in there for the CBC, and I will get to that in a moment.
First, we should give credit where credit is due. I give credit to the CBC on the information it has provided. The Information Commissioner has recently given it an A for performance, an upgrade from an F.
Granted, that is on the timing of requests, because quite often we see the government dragging its heels on a lot of information requests. Canada Post Corporation is another example, and the Department of National Defence. The government needs to do better on getting the information out there.
The bill is a result of the legal battle around section 68.1. We did study it at our committee, and changes are needed to bring a little more clarity to section 68.1 so that we do not run into this in the future.
Granted, there may be changes made to section 68.1. That does not preclude it from being challenged in a court of law and information being challenged in the courts, but we have to make sure that some fundamental principles behind that remain.
That is the role of the Information Commissioner. We must ensure that the Information Commissioner has the power to investigate this. Both parties must submit the information before her. We have to make sure she has the power she needs to look at the information and decide on what can be released. I would like to ask the Information Commissioner, when she comes before committee with the bill, about the prejudice test and how exactly that prejudice test would work and what could be some of the pitfalls around that.
We support CBC. We like the programming and the journalistic investigations it does, but we have to make sure as well that it is protected. The journalism, programming and creative activities must be protected for all.
More important, journalistic sources have to be protected. That was referred to a little earlier in the debate. We have to ensure that these sources are protected, because it is fundamental, when it comes to journalism, that these sources be protected.
The second part of the bill, which is an interesting part, is about the salary ranges and salaries in government departments.
If the CBC wanted to protect the salary of a personality or someone in the department, it would have to go to the Information Commissioner and try to have that information protected, because it bases on its programming integrity, its commercial value. With regard to looking at the salaries at the CBC, the Information Commissioner would rule in favour of the CBC and protect those salaries from disclosure for commercial value. We have to make sure that is looked at when we look at the bill at committee.
The other part of the bill is releasing salaries of all people higher than DM1, which is very interesting, because the government, and in particular the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, has not been forthcoming with salaries of people in the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office. The bill does open up those offices, as well, for disclosure of the salary of anybody earning more than a deputy minister's salary.
A deputy minister's salary, just so the public out there would know, is probably somewhere in the range of $160,000 to $180,000, so these are fairly highly paid public servants. It is important that these public servants' salaries be made public. That is one thing the bill would do.
As I said earlier, the government has fallen behind in disclosing such information, and we must hold it to account so it does a better job of it. Once we shine light and open up public disclosure in an access to information request, it does keep things honest.
One thing that I have learned in politics is that as much as there might be secrets, it is hard to keep a secret. We have to ensure this information is available. If an individual requests it, we have to ensure he or she can get access to this information. The government must strive to do a better job of providing that information and to be more open and accountable. It helps the opposition and everyone to hold people to account.
I look forward to this bill going to committee, where more questions can be asked to get clarification and to ensure that the CBC is protected in certain circumstances and to open up transparency in other circumstances.