Debates of Nov. 27th, 2017

Access to Information Act

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, if the member wants to go down the rabbit hole of not intending to keep promises, I would need a little more than 10 minutes to respond.

What is more important in the context of my speech is the faith of Canadians and how little faith they have in the ability of the government to implement any of its agenda. Over the course of the last two years, we have seen backtracking on electoral reform, and the list of promises the Liberals made is long, which they are not keeping.

I read some of the comments from those stakeholders who have a say in this legislation. Is the hon. member saying they are wrong? These are their concerns.

In the context of openness and transparency, I spoke a lot about what we saw today in question period. The finance minister is not being open and transparent, so how can we have any faith in the Liberal government to be open and transparent? It is as simple as that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, what is really disturbing about what the government is doing is the level of cynicism by which it has approached this.

The Prime Minister ran on an issue of trust of Canadians. He told them he would create an open and transparent government. Access to information was actually his very first electoral promise. When we look at what the Liberals have done, they have given the tools to the bureaucracy to limit, obstruct, and shut down access to information requests that they do not like.

The President of the Treasury Board stood in the House and told Canadians not to worry because the government would now publish the mandate letters of the ministers. Those are public anyway. Do the Liberals think Canadians are stupid?

When the President of the Treasury Board says not to worry, that the government will bring forward changes to now have the expenses for ministerial travel made public, which they are already posted, do Liberals think Canadians are stupid? This is a fundamental question about trust. Access to information is about holding government to account when government does not want to be held accountable.

Why does my hon. colleague think the government ignored every single recommendation from the Information Commissioner who wanted to work with Parliament to improve this act?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, why did the government ignore every request of the Information Commissioner? It is a government that ignores a lot of information from a lot of people. An ideology exists within the government. It is a top-down ideology. It does not care what other people say. It does not care what the experts say. I think the government is intent on ramming through whatever it thinks will work for it, politically.

The hon. member brings up an interesting point about the bureaucracy. We have seen many circumstances around here where Liberals hide behind the bureaucracy. They are like petulant little children. They do not accept responsibility for anything, and they blame everybody. We have seen that with the Ethics Commissioner. If something goes wrong here, or if there is information that the Liberals do not want out, or that gets out, the first thing the Liberals will do is blame the bureaucracy, blame the bureaucrats.

We have seen a habit of not accepting any responsibility on the part of ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and even Liberal backbenchers. It is no surprise to me that the Liberals are going to put up a shield between them and the bureaucracy, and then blame it if something goes wrong.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague across talked about the concerns on the quality of debate. I was very intrigued and interested in my colleague's speech today. We have talked about major reforms that the Liberals promised, and my colleague said he did not have time to go into them. We can look at things that have failed, such as electoral reforms, Standing Order reforms, tax reforms, reforms in the military, and now accountability. I think Canadians probably expect the same kinds of results we have seen in so many of these other areas.

One of the reasons we will see that is because of what we saw today in question period. We had a minister who was questioned a dozen times on one question, and all he had to do was say “No”. He did not have to say yes or no, just “No”.

Could my colleague address that issue of just how systemic this kind of refusal to be accountable to the Canadian people is in the government? Is that the reason why so many of these promised reforms have never turned out?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have sat here the last two years and I have seen the systemic misinformation. I have seen the lack of accountability, responsibility, and transparency.

I brought it back to one thing, and I have talked to my constituents about this. They hold total contempt for this place, and we saw that with the actions of the finance minister today. It is complete contempt. To the Liberals and the Prime Minister, this place does not matter. What matters most is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. If the Liberals can do selfies, put it out there, and tell people how great everything is, then somehow that is the way the Liberals think they should govern.

However, members of Parliament are sent to this place to represent their constituents. They are not sent to this place to sit 20 feet away from a government that has contempt for this place and would rather govern on social media than be in this place and be accountable to Canadians. That is the problem right now.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is difficult to listen to the hon. member. It is as if the previous government did not even exist. I am looking at a headline from 2014, published by Global News, entitled “Harper government gets failing grade in freedom-of-information audit”. When the member makes these criticisms, I wonder if he keeps in mind that the previous government, the Harper government, failed categorically in every regard when it came these matters.

Also, since the member went a bit off topic, why did the universal child care benefit of the previous government have a tax applied to it? Our CCB has no tax applied to it and 90% of Canadian families are doing better as a result.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, there the Liberals go again, not accepting any responsibility but putting blame on anybody else. I will remind the House and the member that this was your promise to be open and transparent. It was not the promise of Stephen Harper. You made that promise.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. I want to remind the member that he is to address his answers to the Chair, and he has 18 seconds to wrap it up.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was the Liberals' promise. Why are they not accountable to this? There is as much criticism about Bill C-58 on their part than there was on the previous government. Do people know what the 2017 and 2018 headline will read? “Liberal government fails to be open and transparent.”

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, as always, I am deeply honoured to rise in the House and speak for the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be speaking tonight to Bill C-58 and to express my deep concern about the government's attack on the access to information system.

The folks back home may not pay a lot of attention to access to information because it is the stuff of journalists, researchers and opposition politics. However, access to information is one of the fundamental principles of an accountable democracy. In order to hold government to account, we need to know who is involved when the decisions in the backroom are made. We need to have some manner of light shone into the dark rooms where the power brokers are to ensure a level of accountability. That is the role of the Access to Information Act.

At one point, Canada was well-respected for the Access to Information Act brought in a number of decades ago. However, year by year Canada has slipped in its level of credibility. We are going to be talking about some specific examples of how that plays out tonight.

We are in a situation now where we have a Prime Minister who won so much support across the country because the very first step he took in offering his vision as a new leader was on access to information and open government. His vision for Parliament would be the opposite of the Stephen Harper government, which was considered so controlling and secretive. People put their trust in the Prime Minister. I remember thinking this was really bold, a leader who was willing to make the changes necessary for access to information.

I have grown increasingly concerned that more and more our Parliament has become a sideshow. It has become a Potemkin democracy, where MPs get to play out in the House, but the real decisions are made to benefit those who are not accountable. When the Prime Minister makes a promise on access to information and then undermines it in such a cynical manner, Canadians have a right to know how this happens and how it affects them.

With respect to Bill C-58, which is supposed to change the access to information laws in the country, the President of the Treasury Board says that we should not worry because Canadians will now have access to the mandate letters for the ministers. Is that not already public? He also said that we should not worry because Canadians would now get to know the travel budgets of various ministers. That is already public.

However, what we do not have is the ability in this case for the Access to Information Commissioner to ensure that all documents are posted. One thing we have found with government is that certain documents are not all that helpful to it. Remember when the Minister of Indigenous Services racked up all those thousands of dollars riding around Markham in a limousine? That was embarrassing to government and it did not want that information released. Therefore, if we allow government to release what it wants, it will not release what is embarrassing. However, we need accountability.

Therefore, I will talk about Bill C-58 in the context of a couple of specific cases so people will understand exactly what we are talking about. I am going to talk about the issue of St. Anne's residential school.

As the government is leading its attack to limit the ability of people to access information, I am dealing with the Access to Information Commissioner on the three-and-a-half-year obstruction by federal officials in the justice department to suppress and blackout who made key decisions regarding the justice department's response to the survivors of St. Anne's residential school. In telling the story, we begin to understand why it is so important to have an accountable system for access to information.

St. Anne's residential school was in the region I represent, the community of Fort Albany. If we look at the horrific history of the residential schools, the story of what was done to the children at St. Anne's year in and year out, generation upon generation, it stands among the most horrifying of stories in the country's history. It was a veritable concentration camp of torture and sexual abuse of children.

In 1992, the survivors of St. Anne's came together in Fort Albany to talk about their experience. For the first time, many of them began to talk about the levels of sexual abuse, rape, and forced abortions to which children were subjected.

Edmund Metatawabin, who is chief, brought this to the Ontario Provincial Police and demanded a major police investigation. To its credit, the Ontario Provincial Police, with Sergeant Delguidice in the Cochrane division, undertook a massive investigation of the crimes committed against those children. They identified over 180 perpetrators of rape, torture, and abuse of children. They gathered 1,000 witness statements of that abuse from the survivors and students who were there. They gathered 12,000 pages of police testimony and documentation, including subpoenaed records from the Catholic church in the diocese of Moosonee, to build a picture of what went on in that institution year in and year out.

In 2003, there was an effort with the survivors and the then federal government of Paul Martin, I believe, to try to find a solution. The survivors were shocked at the aggressiveness of the federal government to fight and deny every single case, no matter the evidence. At that time, all of the evidence the police had gathered in Ontario had led to a number of convictions in an Ontario court against the perpetrators of the abuse at St. Anne's, but let us face it: the big ones got away. The priests and bishops who were involved got away. Some of them were dead, some of the perpetrators could not be found, but a number of people were convicted in an Ontario court.

However, in 2004, the justice department wanted access to that trove of evidence to prepare the defence of the number one defendant, which was Canada. When it applied for access to the police documentation, it told the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that it would be unfair to Canada, which was in charge of this institution, in preparing its defence if it did not have all of the evidence. The key officials in the justice department were involved in the application to obtain those records, and they got the records, some 12,000 pages. They got the names of the perpetrators. They were preparing for the major civil litigation trials against Canada.

In 2007-08, the process for the Indian residential schools settlement agreement was set up as an alternative so that the federal government could escape these cases. The federal government agreed at that time to set up the independent assessment process, the IAP. The IAP was to be a non-confrontational process in which the survivors could tell their stories. That is how they told the survivors it would play out, but of course it did not play out like that at all for the survivors of St. Anne's. Therefore, the justice department wore two hats. The first hat was to obtain all of the evidence, prepared in so-called narratives, so that the adjudicators and claimant lawyers could use it to make it easier for the claimants. The justice department acted as the gatherer of evidence. The justice department's other hat was as lawyer for the defendant, Canada, and its number one goal was limiting the payouts.

In the case of St. Anne's residential school, the justice department had an obligation to prepare a list of all documentation, listing all the known crimes and sexual abuse that occurred in that institution, and it presented a document at the hearing stating that there was no known history of sexual abuse at the Fort Albany Indian residential school, St. Anne's. It said there was absolutely no documentation to show any student-on-student abuse at the Fort Albany institution of St. Anne's.

People told their stories, and their cases were thrown out because the justice department did not go there with a non-confrontational attitude. It went in loaded for bear and accused the survivors, who were victims of child rape, of not being able to prove their stories because they could not remember the day the priest raped them, that they could not remember little details. Yet the justice department already knew they were telling the truth because it had all of the evidence.

We had claimants, like claimant H-15019, whose case was thrown out, because the justice department argued there was no proof that a predatory pedophile priest was in St. Anne's Residential School when that child was in that building. That child, who grew into a man who asked for justice from the Government of Canada did not know that the justice department had a long list involving that pedophile priest. The department knew he had been in that building since 1938. From 1938 to 1974 he had free access to rape children, and the Justice Department of Canada lied about it in hearings, suppressed that evidence, and had that case thrown out. How could this have happened in 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Canada?

The greatest moment that I have seen since I have been here and the greatest moment in the history of this Parliament was when Prime Minister Harper stood up in the House and apologized. People in my region wept for days when they heard that apology. They never thought that justice would happen and after hearing the apology they thought it was possible.

People wept when the present Prime Minister gave a powerful speech at the closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I was listening to him. He said that Canada would make this right, that the obligation of the survivors to prove what they went through was over, that Canada would be there for them. That has not been the case with the survivors of St. Anne's Residential School. The justice department continues to take the brass knuckles approach to deny them basic levels of justice.

In 2013 I wrote to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and the justice minister at the time and I asked them who had made the decision to suppress the police evidence in testimony that had these cases thrown out. I asked them both what they were going to do to rectify this clear breach of legal duty. Those ministers said they knew about the evidence but that they were not accountable for presenting it, which was false.

In January 2014, the Ontario Superior Court ordered the previous government and the justice minister to turn over those documents to the independent assessment process to have those cases fairly adjudicated. The government refused. It continued to deny.

The survivors of St. Anne's Residential School had to go back to court in 2015, and this time the government was forced to turn over the documents. However, it had blacked out the names of the perpetrators and the witnesses to make the evidence functionally useless.

For what purpose in a nation like ours would the Government of Canada opt to protect pedophiles, rapists, and sadists by hiding their names? For what possible reason would justice department lawyers, the people who are charged with presenting the law for the people of Canada, go into hearings and challenge survivors who suffered horrific levels of abuse? For what possible reason would the Government of Canada decide to suppress this police evidence? I still have not figured out an answer to that, but it dogs me. I stay up at night trying to figure out what kind of person hired to represent Canada would do this.

In 2013, I applied a simple tool, a tool of all parliamentarians and of all Canadians, by making an access to information request regarding the political decisions that went into suppressing the police testimony and evidence that denied justice to the survivors of St. Anne's Residential School.

For the information of folks back home, when a government does not want to answer a question, it delays. We had a 300-day delay. We knew this was just an attempt by the department not to have to answer the question. The cases were closing down and the ability of survivors who had their cases thrown out to re-appeal the verdicts was coming to an end. It seemed obvious that the justice department would drag this out over three years, because it thought that the cases would be closed and all would be said and done. We waited 300 days, 600 days, then 900 days.

The new government came in and I thought it would change things. It had no reason to oppose survivors of St. Anne's. The new government took the position that it would not turn over any of the political documentation regarding the decision to suppress the police evidence. That was done by the new justice minister and the new Prime Minister.

Therefore, we approached the access to information commissioner, the tool that we use, to ask how is it possible that after three years of delay, they could deny and say they were not obligated to turn over this evidence. This documentation concerns who knew what in the minister's office. This is a question on a political issue that Canadians need answered.

The Information Commissioner and her office are one of the great institutions of our country. She understood the seriousness of this. It was not a vexatious request; it was about justice. She challenged the justice department. We were on the verge of being in court with the justice department to find out what was being said in those offices when they suppressed that police evidence. The justice department agreed to turn over four batches of information over a period of a year. The first batch of information was about 90% blacked out. The second batch of 3,000 pages we just received was entirely blacked out.

When the government says it wants the right to refuse vexatious requests, what it means by vexatious are the requests that would give it political grief. It wants to be able to turn those down.

The folks who survived St. Anne's Residential School, who were taken from their families, who had their identities stripped from them, who had their rights taken away from them, who were left in the hands of abusers and torturers, have a right to ask why Parliament failed them. They have a right to ask why the justice department of our country continues to deny and challenge them and obstruct their basic rights for redress. Part of those answers may lie in the courts, but part of those answers lie in the access to information request. We have a right to know who advised the politicians to do this.

I would like to say that the abuse of the children at St. Anne's has come to an end because of these beautiful apologies, but it has not. We now have, in the case of claimant H-15019 and claimant C14114, a case that was thrown out because she did not have any documentation. She was unable to prove that when she was assaulted in St. Anne's Residential School it was known by administration. Then, after her case was thrown out, she learned there were all these documents. She attempted to have her case reopened. The Government of Canada said she could not reopen her case because her case was adjudicated. We are talking about a child victim of rape. What possible reason would the Government of Canada have to suppress police testimony about child rape? What possible reason could it have to defy the Ontario Superior Court and black out the names of the perpetrators? For what possible reason would it black out all of the political documentation on what was said in the minister's office regarding this decision?

For what possible reason, right now, at this time, would they be in the hearing saying “Okay, we've been finally forced to hand over the police testimony, but it is inadmissible”. Why is it inadmissible? It is inadmissible because it has not been tested. What they are saying to the survivors is that it does not matter that we are having to present 12,000 pages of police documentation of the perpetrators, because the survivors have to find a witness to come in and be tested.

The trauma to the communities I represent is a direct highway from St. Anne's Residential School to the suicide crisis of our young people today. Talk to anyone in the community and they will say that trauma continues to kill children, and yet we have justice department lawyers saying that evidence cannot be used unless they bring forward a survivor to be re-challenged by the justice department.

I will close on this. We do have a survivor who is willing to come forward and verify the testimony. The justice department said she cannot be allowed to speak because she has already spoken. Can someone explain that to me? That is why we need access to information. It is to understand the perfidious nature of what is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Beaches—East York.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have to say my colleague highlighted the problems, in his view, of creating a requirement or an ability to decline requests that are vexatious and frivolous. That was a recommendation from the Information Commissioner. When we undertook at our committee a study of the Access to Information Act, that was one of our recommendations based on the evidence. We did hear concerns and testimony about the culture of delay and we heard concerns about governments having this ability not just to refuse for vexatious and frivolous reasons but for other reasons as well, and so we made an amendment. The member previous said we did not listen to any of the recommendations from the Information Commissioner, but in fact we did. A specific amendment that we made was to ensure that, where the government is refusing access on any of these new grounds, the Information Commissioner must first sign off. I wonder what the member thinks about that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, what I think of that is not a lot.

I do not know if the hon. member read the Information Commissioner's report of the government's recommendations and its plan. The Information Commissioner said this is a complete failure of every single major promise the Prime Minister made on issues of access to information, and I am absolutely appalled to see the current government members standing up there and saying they are going to give the minister a few little efforts here while they are leaving it in the hands of the bureaucracy to decide what is vexatious, that they are leaving it in the hands of the bureaucracy to decide whether they now have to have the specific issue, specific subject matter, the specific type of request, and the specific period. That might seem really great for government to be able to limit because it can throw those cases out.

I would refer him to Mr. Peter Di Gangi's work with the Algonquin Nation Secretariat. If the member listened to any of the indigenous voices who came forward, they spoke on how this would be used by the crown because it is the crown that is always a defendant with first nations and it would be used by the crown to be able throw out indigenous claims. It would be able to limit indigenous justice. The Information Commissioner has spoken on this. Therefore, the Prime Minister said that it is nation to nation, but no, it is still the bureaucracy deciding what information indigenous communities can and cannot have.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Beaches—East York was aiming to point out that the member made some inaccurate comments, and he just reinforced the mistakes of his speech. I am concerned that he may have prepared and presented his comments without taking a look at what the committee did to address the commissioner's report. Yes, the commissioner had criticism. The commissioner has one perspective on this, the access perspective. The committee also heard from the Privacy Commissioner and others who represented other interests.

That being said, the committee put over 12 amendments forward, most of which were to actually address the very concerns the member has been raising. I think we are all touched by the challenges of the St. Anne's residential school. We all want what is best for first nations' healing and reconciliation. Therefore, there were specific provisions in the committee's amendments to ensure that it was very clear that a “large or broad request, or one that causes the government discomfort, does not of itself represent bad faith on the part of the requester” and that the ministries have a duty to consult to make sure that in their duty to assist they are assisting requesters like the very requesters whom the member was talking—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We want to allow other questions. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect, the current government is obviously not all that touched by the children of St. Anne's when it is continuing to fight them in court. Therefore, all the talk that I hear from the Liberals about this new relationship, yes it is nice, let us all cry on each other's shoulders, means nothing unless the government is going to put this in action.

The member said that the Information Commissioner's is just one point of view. She is the defender of the Access to Information Act. When the member talks about the committee, we are talking about a Liberal majority committee that ignored working with the other members of that committee and that ignored all the key recommendations of the Access to Information Commissioner. When I hear that it is just one point of view, yes it is just not the point of view of government. The role of the access to information system is to hold government to account. Canada was once one of the world leaders in access to information. We are 46th, 47th, or are we down to 50th now? We are below narco drug states. We are below Mexico, below Serbia, and below Sri Lanka in terms of access to information. We have an Access to Information Commissioner who is raising the alarm bells that this would even further impede our broken access to information system. I am just frankly appalled at the cynicism of the current government.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the story that my colleague for Timmins—James Bay has told is a terrible story. It illustrates exactly why, to get to the bottom of some of the most terrible crimes, whether they are human, ethical, or environmental, we need to know what is happening at the place of decision-makers and not leave this in the hands of the bureaucrats.

Given the Prime Minister's very solemn promise that the Access to Information Act would be extended to cover the offices of the Prime Minister and ministers so that we can see as Canadians and as members of Parliament how decisions were made, what is the impact for people such as those the member represents, the indigenous people, who are fighting the legacy of residential schools and St. Anne's repeated court cases? When we see this promise so completely broken, what does that do to their faith in government?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are many tools a government has to limit access to information. There are cabinet confidences and a whole series of tools that the government already has. However, the question my hon. colleague has raised about the promise that was made by the Prime Minister to open up the key ministerial offices to access to information is really fundamental, because Canada has been called a black hole of accountability when it comes to the fact that any minister can put something under the ministerial office and lo and behold, it cannot be accessed. This is where the decisions are made.

The Prime Minister made a specific promise about opening that up, and yet he did not follow through, and these are key issues, particularly with the issue of St. Anne's Residential School. What we need to know as politicians and the public are the decisions that went into the political decisions, not into the legal issues, and not into the individual cases. Those are already covered and protected under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. They are protected by privacy. We do not need to know the individual names of those who suffered. What we need to know is, for example, who was the assistant deputy minister. What was the role of the assistant deputy minister in gathering evidence? What was the role of the advisers to the minister in making a decision that had a profound impact and that has denied justice?

We have to ask ourselves, are there two levels of justice in this country, with the lesser one for indigenous people? I would like to think there are not.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is worth remembering that the Information Commissioner in an unprecedented response gave a full condemnation, top to bottom, of the bill. She basically said that Bill C-58 as it stood, notwithstanding the couple of tweaks and little turns that have been made, is a regressive piece of proposed legislation.

I would ask my colleague what he thought, and whether he agrees with me that the arrogance of the Liberal government is best reflected by the fact that some government departments are already using provisions of Bill C-58 to deny information properly requested which would have been provided under the existing status quo.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the fact is, our Information Commissioner is studious about being non-partisan, and so when we see the Information Commissioner totally condemn a government bill, I do believe that is unprecedented for the kind of work the commissioner does. To see that we have various departments already throwing requests out is a very disturbing undermining of the fundamental principle. As I said, Canada is about 50th in the world in terms of credibility of access to information. When Mexico, Serbia, and Colombia are further ahead of us in accountability to citizens, we have a problem.

I would have thought the Prime Minister would have lived up to that promise. It is the cynicism of the Liberals' action and presentation here that really disturb me.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, particularly at supper time.

I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-58. It is quite a coincidence that we are talking about consistency, transparency, and access to information—in short, giving clear answers to clear questions—when we saw exactly the opposite of that today in question period. I will come back to that a bit later.

This bill objectively seeks to make government more transparent and to give Canadians better access to government information. That is the objective, but it is still far from reality. I would not say that I am in a conflict of interest because that is a sensitive topic these days. However, as a former journalist and a current MP, I find myself walking a very fine line between the legitimate access to information requests that Canadians should be able to make to the federal government and the executive's ability to govern in order to carry out the usual business of a government, a country, while maintaining some level of confidentiality when it comes to debates and relevant information.

Let us be clear about one thing: if everything is made public and if there is access to everything that is said, and if everyone's views are known, at some point there will no longer be any real internal debate by cabinet, which is necessary to govern a solid state like Canada. Therefore, there is a very fine line that needs to be drawn and this government clearly did that when it was in opposition. When the Liberals made an election promise, they drew that line; today, the line is there, whereas before it was here. This is a regressive bill.

I listened closely to the President of the Treasury Board, who sponsored this bill. I hold the member in high regard and have great respect for him. He has been here for almost 21 years and, at another time, early on in his political career, he sat on the right side, with the Conservatives. He has the right to change his mind, as some have, but I just wanted to point that out, tongue in cheek. I will be a good sport. He made an objective statement that I will not challenge: this is the first time in 34 years that a government is overhauling access to information. Only that much is true. The overhaul is not going to provide more access to information. On the contrary, it will give more power to the executive, the ministers, the Prime Minister and his cabinet to restrict Canadians' access to information.

I will provide some examples. First, the Information Commissioner was rather scathing in her assessment of the first draft of this regressive bill and worse yet, she said that in her view, the sponsorship scandal, the legacy of the Chrétien and Martin governments—of which the current President of the Treasury Board was a member—would not have been uncovered without the excellent journalistic work of the Daniel Leblancs of this world. It is quite a positive development for transparency, right? It is truly a step forward for openness. It is truly a fundamental element of freedom of the press. No, it is not.

We recognize that a dozen or so amendments were adopted, but we think that those amendments do not go far enough when it comes to the Liberal ambition and even less so when it comes to the practice of journalism. I acknowledge that what I am about to say may be subjective, but part of our work as MPs is to be subjective. It may be subjective, but I have 20 years' experience as a journalist under my belt. We believe that the proposed amendments do not go far enough. As a result of these amendments, in a case like the sponsorship scandal of the Chrétien and Martin Liberal governments, of which the current President of the Treasury Board was a member, it would still be difficult to get access to that information. It would not be impossible, but journalists' work would become even more difficult, and that is why we think this is a regressive bill.

In addition, it will be the government that chooses what can and cannot be disclosed from now on. It will be judge and jury. Of course it is in the government's interest to withhold certain information; that is only natural. I am not saying that is what it should do, but it could be a natural reaction for some government members. That is what I would call a step backwards.

The same is true when it comes to the proactive disclosure of certain documents. With this supposedly proactive approach, there is a risk that bureaucrats, policy advisers, and ministers will know which documents are going to be made public in a month or in six months. We can therefore expect a version A, which will be made public, and a version B that has the real information, which can be found in emails, for example, and might be a little more politically sensitive. The government might be a little less inclined to make that information public.

Of course, nothing is perfect in life, but we believe that the proactive disclosure of certain information falls short of what was said or aspired to in the Liberal Party's electoral platform, which is what people voted on two years ago.

Earlier, my NDP colleague mentioned certain amendments that the government flatly refused to consider. The amendments were substantive and in keeping with Liberal promises, but unfortunately, they were rejected. The same amendments had been suggested by the Information Commissioner, journalists, members of the media, and first nations.

The government says it cares so much about first nations and keeps talking about how they are its priority. However, as we have shown during a number of debates, including the one on the Prime Minister's unfortunate statement about religious belief, the government talks about first nations only when doing so suits its purposes. The same goes for this bill.

Even though the government made a dozen or so amendments, we feel that this bill does not go far enough in terms of ensuring the clarity, openness, and transparency everyone expects of the government. It is also a watered-down version of the Liberal promise. In short, this is yet another in what is becoming a very long line of broken Liberal promises.

This government got itself elected on a promise of a small $10-billion deficit for three years and a subsequent return to a balanced budget. Now we are talking $20-billion deficits, and nobody has any idea when the budget will be balanced. The government said it would aggressively raise taxes on seniors. As a result—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is rising on a point of order.

Bill C-63—Notice of time allocation motion

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Madam Speaker, I would like to advise that agreements could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-63, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measures.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings of the said stages.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

Access to Information Act

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I welcome that happening for the first time while I was speaking. I was a little afraid, to say the least, but I am getting used to the rules of the House of Commons.

Earlier, I was speaking about this government's long line of broken promises, which keeps growing. I was going over the commitments it made and then ignored, especially the ones concerning deficits and the money it was supposed to give to the middle class. The Fraser Institute has reported that 80% of Canadian families are paying $840 more, mainly because certain tax credits our government introduced, such as the green tax credit for people who take public transit, like the bus, were eliminated. This represented two months of free public transit. The Liberal government, which claims to be a green government that is in touch with people, did the exact opposite by eliminating this tax credit.

It is the same thing when the government says that the wealthiest 1% of Canadians will pay more taxes under the Liberal government. This Robin Hood policy is completely false. It is not us Conservatives who are saying so, nor the Montreal Economic Institute or any other right-wing think tank. It is the Department of Finance itself that determined in a report issued just two months ago that the wealthiest Canadians are paying $1.2 billion less in taxes because of this government's tax policies. The government is saying one thing and doing another.

Fortunately, that information is public. It is found in a document that the government made public. We did not have to go through the Access to Information Act, which as we know will be weakened by the updated version of Bill C-58.

It is a rather big coincidence, to say the least, that we are debating access to information, openness, and transparency since, today, as we tried to get answers to our questions in the House of Commons, we saw an extremely ugly demonstration of what a government should not do in question period.

Let me be clear. We understand that in question period, we are talking about a question, period. It is to provide information. When I sat on the National Assembly, it was officially called a question and answer period. However, here, unfortunately we are just talking about a question period, we are not talking about answering a question. That would be very useful, because, today, not three or four times, but on 21 occasions in a row, we asked a clear and simple question of the Minister of Finance, and every time, on 21 occasions in a row, he dodged the issue. He refused to answer a clear question with a clear answer. That is sad. Therefore, it will be very interesting to see our colleagues on the other side say why it is important to have openness and transparency, and to give good information to the people of Canada.

In a government, the minister of finance is number two, not the last minister. In some cases, we could even say the minister of finance is number one; however, that is another debate. I do not want to put aside any other ministers, such as the global affairs minister, the transport minister, the Treasury Board President, and all of those important portfolios such as the defence minister and the first nations minister. All of them are very important. However, in life, there are those who are at the top, and then there are other people. When we talk about cabinet ministers, for sure the finance minister is at the top. I am quite sure that no one who is sitting here—and I see some hon. members from coast to coast who have had strong responsibilities in former governments—will be offended when I say that for sure Jim Flaherty was the number one cabinet minister under the Stephen Harper government. The same thing also goes for Joe Oliver. Everybody will recognize that, because the finance minister is the one who designs the financial and fiscal policies that apply to the financial and fiscal reality of Canada. Therefore, when we have what we could say is a conflict of interest, it is our responsibility to ask questions of the Minister of Finance. That is what we did today. We asked a simple question 21 times in a row, but, unfortunately, 21 times in a row, the Minister of Finance refused to give a clear answer.

That is why I think it is pretty ironic that we are debating Bill C-58, the goal of which is to increase government transparency and openness around information gathering. However, in our view, the bill is regressive and will make investigative reporting even harder. It also places the government in a conflict of interest by making it both the judge and the judged when journalists and citizens raise questions.

We think this bill is regressive. It is also ironic that we should be debating it on the very day that the Minister of Finance, the number one minister, refused to give a clear answer to a perfectly simple question not once, not twice, not three times, but 21 times in a row. He never gave a clear answer to the question in either English or French.

In conclusion, we are going to vote against this bill. We recommend that the Liberal members also vote against this bill, because it is never too late to do right. It would be a good thing if the Liberals voted against it. We could review the bill, which we believe to be a step backwards, not forwards, for press freedom and especially for access to information.