Madam Speaker, now we see the member chirping rather than listening to a response that I believe is important for Canadians to hear.
When it comes to the legislation that was introduced and given to committee versus the legislation that has come out of committee, even after this government's amendments, we see that the work the committee did was taken very seriously. There were seven exemptions. The committee chose to remove all seven. The government has chosen to remove three.
We can look at the exemptions we have kept. One is cabinet confidences. I am sure Canadians will not be surprised, and they understand cabinet confidence. With respect to information described in the Witness Protection Program Act, why we would need the name of an individual who has already been given witness protection is beyond me. We will have access to the information, just not the details about the individual. What the individual looks like and the name of the individual should not matter when we make a decision. We have suggested that the exemptions about confidential sources and “information relating directly to an ongoing...law enforcement agency that may lead to a prosecution” be kept.
We have kept the removal of FINTRAC, the removal of the Investment Canada Act, and the removal of information respecting “ongoing defence intelligence activities supporting military operations”.
This is a step in the right direction, and we will continue working hard—