Mr. Speaker, there was great hope and optimism that the Conservatives were going to be different. In fact, John Bryden, the Liberal MP I made reference to, crossed the floor. He was so frustrated with his own party for failing to introduce the measures he thought were the single most important thing one could do, that he crossed the floor to the Conservatives and ran as a Conservative when he lost his election.
The campaign promise was that the Conservatives would introduce all of the Information Commissioner's recommendations in his open government act and, in fact, it was part of the Federal Accountability Act until it was pulled out. I was instrumental in passing the Conservatives' Federal Accountability Act as the swing vote on the parliamentary committee that passed it. Every motion needed my support. We were shocked when the freedom of information chapter was lifted out of the Federal Accountability Act.
I think I can only quote the former minister of justice, the member for Mount Royal. He underestimated that the opposition to freedom of information is legion and, when the powers that be got to the Conservatives and asked what they could possibly be thinking and why they would stipulate themselves to that level of scrutiny voluntarily, they chickened out, backed out, and broke their promises. We are asking them to fulfill their commitment to Canadians today with these six simple measures.