Debates of Sept. 25th, 2017

Access to Information Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his speech. I have a question for him, but I want to begin by pointing out that these changes do indeed respond to the election promises and commitments made in the mandate letters of the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Democratic Institutions. We are committed to being open and transparent. These legislative measures that we are discussing today are one step among many, but it is a significant step in that direction.

For a party that talks a lot about wanting more transparency and openness, why is the NDP refusing to support this legislative measure that offers the transparency it is looking for? Why is the NDP not going to support the expanded powers for the Information and Privacy Commissioner that are included in this bill? Why is the NDP not supporting the mandatory five-year review, which is a fundamental aspect of this bill that will come into force soon, in 2018-19? Why—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. We have time for only one answer and perhaps one more question. The hon. member for Trois-Rivières.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for her question.

I want to clarify something. My colleague is accusing the NDP of talking a lot. We certainly take every opportunity afforded to us to talk, without exception, but that is not all we do. We take action. I was saying earlier that in 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2014, we introduced meaningful bills to improve things. I admit that the two measures that she mentioned from the bill are worthwhile, but saying that, every five years, we will have an opportunity to review a bill that is not doing the job means that there is much left to be done, in my opinion. We are doing more than just talking.

I wish the Liberal government had drawn from the NDP bills that were introduced, and that it had introduced a Bill C-58 that went a lot further than the one we currently have before us. It is high time that the government did more, that it stopped focusing on its image and really put words into action.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from many government members. They want a lot of work to be done in committee and for MPs to have the opportunity to speak and offer suggestions. However, we know that a committee has already studied the Access to Information Act and that most of the recommendations it made were not incorporated into the government's bill.

Can we trust this government? Will it take into account what the committee asks it to do when the bill is sent there?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

If the old adage is true that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, then I find it hard to see how we can trust the Liberal government when it comes to this bill.

However, the New Democratic Party has never been a democratic party. If, in committee, the Liberal Party shows an openness the likes of which we have never seen, then we will propose all the amendments we believe to be essential to bring about real change in this bill, so that we may go over it again at third reading. We are not closed to the idea.

However, under the current circumstances, we are light years away from agreeing on a bill that is all about image.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill and share many of the concerns and disappointments that have been raised in the House today.

In my 40 years as an environmental lawyer working as a public advocate, working with governments, and advising other nations, I have been constant in pursuing citizens' rights to have a voice in decision-making and to ensure that those voices are informed and constructive through ready and timely access to information, and, as my colleague from Regina—Lewvan mentioned today, fighting for whistle-blower protection measures.

Time after time, when we were dealing with issues that might impact health or the environment, officials in the health department and environment department have given up their careers by stepping forward and revealing information that the government did not want to reveal.

It is disappointing that those measures have not yet come forward. I have, three times over, tabled in this place a Canadian environmental bill of rights that would have expressly guaranteed those rights, including access to environmental information. It is sad to share that the first time I tabled this bill and it actually went to committee, the majority on that committee—since only I was there, and the others were Liberals and Conservatives—struck down the simple provision in my bill calling for the government to provide access to environmental information.

Why are my bill and a strengthened Access to Information Act necessary? Among the greatest barriers Canadians face in seeking to provide a voice in decisions impacting their health and environment is a lack of access to information. They want information on the planned routes of pipelines and the locations of chemical plants before they are approved. They want information on potential or known impacts of toxins on their health and environment before they are approved for use, information on the safety of consumer products before they are made available for sale, and information on how the government intends to strengthen our environmental protections in a revised NAFTA.

Here I add that the government has circulated a call for public input on environmental impact, yet it has provided absolutely no information on what it is proposing to put in NAFTA. Talk about a vacuous call for consultation.

In successive reports by the parliamentary committee on environment and sustainable development, recommendations have been made to ensure greater public access to such information. We await actions on these recommendations by a government that claims priority for the environment and for these long-overdue reforms, and we wait for for the government to enact an environmental bill of rights.

As the Centre for Law and Democracy has stated in its comments on Bill C-58:

...the heart of a right to information system...is the right of individuals to request whatever information they want from government.

In other words, at the heart of the right of access of information is the right of Canadians to ask for the information they want, not to sit back and wait for the government to decide what information it might choose to disclose. Yes, we need both, but we need access to information and more willingness to disclose, and as my colleague has pointed out, the Liberal emphasis on proactive publication leaves government the discretion of what to disclose.

In reviewing Bill C-58, we need only consider this simple question: does it deliver on the Liberals' promise to improve access to information? Sadly, the clear answer is no, it does not.

Sadly, Bill C-58 represents yet another broken election promise, as has been said many times over in this place. The government, in presenting this bill, has blatantly disregarded the 85 recommendations for reform by the Information Commissioner and the recommendations by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. It has ignored the advice of legal experts and access to information experts.

The bill is completely at odds with the reforms proposed by the Prime Minister in the bill he himself tabled while in opposition. It fails to deliver reforms recommended in many bills tabled by the New Democratic Party. It contradicts the directives issued by the Prime Minister to all of his ministers in the mandate letters, and we have heard this mentioned many times in this place. As the Prime Minister said in every mandate letter:

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government. It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves. Government and its information should be open by default.

Contrary to what the President of the Treasury Board has asserted, a statement in a mandate letter does not, in fact, extend a right to information. The government expects accolades for releasing these mandate letters, then abjectly fails to deliver on them.

The President of the Treasury Board gave accolades to the government because it was elected to this open government committee, yet one remains puzzled. An analysis by a recognized group, the Centre for Law and Democracy, pointed out that there are actually international criteria for assessing how well a government is delivering on access to information. There are seven criteria, and they have done an analysis. It is important to note that right now, Canada sits at a miserable 49th position globally. By implementing the measures in the bill, it is only going to rise to the 46th position. It shoots a cannon hole in the argument of the President of the Treasury Board that the bill deserves great accolades.

Canadians remember the broken election promise to end first past the post elections, which was an action mandated to the first minister of democratic reform and broken.

On balance, Bill C-58 is a very small step forward in improving public access to information, but it delivers us many steps backwards.

What are the key reforms the commissioner, the committee, members of Parliament, and access to information experts have long called for? First is expanding the scope of the act to require access to a broader array of information. Second is reducing the wait times and fees. The government is doing that. In fact, it has done it before. It would simply put it in law. Third is substantially narrowing the exceptions and exclusions, including access to prime ministerial and ministerial information, yet the bill would cut that back with the exceptions it includes. Fourth is empowering the Information Commissioner to issue binding orders. While that power would be extended, it would be cut back by additional powers that would be given to the government to short-circuit those powers. We would have hoped for protection for whistle-blowers.

What would the bill provide? Bill C-58 would provide a five-year review. We have waited three decades for a strengthened act, and now all we get is that in five years, we can review it again. It defies credibility. I find it astounding. Of course there should be a five-year review, but we should not wait for the amendments we have waited 30 years for.

The bill would formalize free waivers. It would grant powers to the Information Commissioner, which I mentioned, but they would be restricted.

Where have the Liberals failed? Well, there is no duty to document the decision-making processes. The bill would allow the labelling of information as cabinet briefings to deny access. It introduces yet more exceptions. It fails to require a harms test, which is a specific recommendation made by the parliamentary committee. It fails to prescribe in law an explicit public interest override, a recommendation of the parliamentary committee. Indeed, it empowers the commission to order information released but undermines it with other provisions it adds.

Absent government acceptance of significant amendments to the bill, and the record has been that the Liberals have not been open to amendments from this place, and given the abject failings of Bill C-58, perhaps the next measure we can anticipate by the government to cover off another broken election promise, and sad to say we will wait and see, is yet another amendment to the ministerial mandate letters to remove the commitment to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government.

The President of the Treasury Board has committed to be open to amendments. We are hopeful. We will have a good discourse in the committee. There have been a lot of concerns raised. We have had a lot of reviews—from the Information Commissioner, from previous reports by Parliament, and from experts. Let us hope that if the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee examines the bill in closer detail, it will speak to the Government of Canada and call for these kinds of changes to come forward to genuinely provide access to information to Canadians. If the Liberals will not listen us, perhaps they will listen to nations around the world.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the member for Edmonton Strathcona on a number of measures, including her environmental rights bill, when I was a member of the environment and sustainable development committee. I have a great deal of respect for her.

I was surprised at the exaggerations and out-and-out inaccuracies in her statement, and I will point out two of them. If we cannot rely on what my colleague is saying in those two inaccuracies, then what else is being exaggerated for political purposes in this debate? It is unfortunate, because this is a substantive bill with substantive issues, and we welcome real discussion, but exaggerated misinformation brings down the tone of the debate.

One of the member's inaccuracies was in saying that we will only be able to review the bill in five years, and that is patently not true. The legislation states clearly that the first review in the five-year rolling reviews would be one year after this legislation comes into force. We expect that to be in 2018-2019. This is all part of a pattern of reforms that we are making that we started right from the beginning by having the committee study the bill and having ministerial directives.

The second inaccuracy was that the member claimed that the bill does not meet the ministerial mandate text, but it does. The bill appropriately covers ministerial offices with the access to information regime. That is exactly what is happening.

Maintaining cabinet confidence has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as an important democratic principle, and we are balancing that principle with access through a very broad proactive disclosure of the information that is most often requested through access to information.

I hope the member can tell me that she is going to work constructively toward an outcome that she can support. I would also like her to correct the record on those issues.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I too have a great deal of respect for that member. I appreciated working with her on environment committee when I was first elected. She worked very hard on that committee.

However, I am stunned. What is this, alternative facts? We have heard speaker afer speaker reiterate not even what is our opinion in this place but what legal and access to information experts are revealing. We simply need to look at what the parliamentary committee recommended, which the government has not delivered on. We simply need to look at what the Information Commissioner has recommended, which the government has not delivered on. We could shoot cannonballs through the supposedly greater access to information. I am stunned.

All the government is giving us is more opportunities to review a law that we have been waiting three decades to have revised and strengthened for the benefit of Canadians.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to Bill C-58 in questions and comments to my hon. colleague from Edmonton Strathcona. I have been listening to the debate all day, but popping up has not yielded me the floor until this moment.

We used to say in this country that we did not exactly have freedom of information but rather freedom from information. I am afraid that Bill C-58 does let us down badly in a couple of key areas.

I wonder if my colleague has any comments on something I find particularly distressing, which is the expanding of the ability of the government institution that holds the information to make its own decision that a request is vexatious. From what I can see in the bill, it would not be subject to independent review. I wonder if she has any comments on that.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, who has worked along with me for many years in fighting for access to information on behalf of Canadians, particularly in the environmental area.

I too share the hon. member's concern that the government has done completely the opposite of what the committee recommended. The committee did recommend that there should be some level of screening of requests for access to information, but that would be done by the neutral commissioner, not by the very institution from which people are seeking the information. It is absolutely stunning. People will have access to information, but the government can decide if it thinks the request is frivolous and vexatious and a waste of time.

It is frankly stunning. The bill does not deliver on what our colleagues on committee recommended.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address you today to speak to Bill C-58, an act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. It is sponsored by the hon. President of the Treasury Board, whom we all know and enjoy listening to. It is also a very special bill by the way in which it is introduced. It seeks to amend the Access to Information Act, 1983. It is a rather old piece of legislation that deserves to be cleaned up and made more current.

The amendments were meant to affect any organization that shares information with federal government institutions, and allow anyone seeking to obtain that information to access it, according to the Liberal government's election promise. The first important observation is that this change to the Access to Information Act does not include the Liberals' electoral promise to extend the application of the legislation to the Prime Minister's and ministers' offices. I think that is the most glaring omission in this bill.

Under the new provisions of the act, the government can decline any access to information request it feels is vexatious, made in bad faith, or is an abuse of the right to make a request for access to records. If these reasons could be properly assessed, we might find that provision acceptable. However, the problem is that these reasons are subjective. It is possible that the Liberal Party, particularly when we look at how it governs, would use these reasons to prevent Canadians, the opposition parties, and groups that monitor the government to ensure it is doing its work properly from having access to all of the information.

Since it was founded, our party has been relentless in its efforts to make the government more accountable to Canadians. When our party was in office, it was not a scandal-ridden government like the previous Liberal governments and particularly the government that has been in office for the past two years. The bill provides for an increase of $5.1 billion in the budget of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada. Is that simply to determine whether requests are vexatious or illegitimate? We are wondering why the Liberal government cannot do that work itself with all of the staff it has at its disposal, particularly since it always seems to be able to find a way to dip into people's pockets.

I would like to quote a few stakeholders, since people might say we are bound to criticize everything the government does simply because we are the official opposition. I will quote some people who are neutral and need access to information, people who are guardians of our democracy.

The first is Katie Gibbs, executive director of Evidence For Democracy. She says that the Liberal government is not keeping its election promise. She believes that by ruling out the possibility of obtaining information from ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office, the government is breaking its campaign promise to establish a government open by default. She added that the possibility to refuse access to information requests on an undefined basis jeopardizes the transparency and the openness of the government.

In addition, Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, has said that the bill does nothing to address the enormous gaps in the legislation, as the Liberals promised. He believes that more changes are needed to have a government that is transparent and open by default. He said that the bill takes a step backwards in allowing government officials to deny requests for information if they think the request is frivolous, which is entirely subjective, or made in bad faith. He believes that public officials should not be given this power, as they will likely use it as a new loophole to deny the public information it has a right to know. Yes, he called this a step backwards. This does not improve things. Theoretically, when a bill is introduced, it is usually meant to improve things and move society forward.

Stéphane Giroux, president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, said, “What interested us most was having access to cabinet documents. It was a false alarm; too good to be true.”

The next quote is from Robert Marleau, Canada's Information Commissioner from 2007 to 2009. This is not just anyone. We are not quoting opposition members, but rather experts in the field. He said, and I quote:

For the ministries, there’s no one to review what they choose not to disclose, and I think that goes against the principle of the statute. They’ve taken the commissioner out of the loop. If you ask for these briefing notes, and you’ve got them and they were redacted, you had someone to appeal to. So there’s no appeal. You can’t even go to a court. It’s one step forward, two steps back.

The British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association said that the bill leaves black holes in the act that will prevent certain kinds of information from being released. That is why we must strongly condemn the fact that the Prime Minister is breaking yet another election promise.

Yes, another promise has been broken. Let me review some of the other broken election promises. For those who may not have been keeping up with the news, the government promised electoral reform, but did not deliver. They changed their minds on that one. They talked about a small deficit, just $10 billion per year. That was another broken promise. These past two years, the deficit has been in excess of $25 billion.

The Liberals promised to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of 2015. They failed to do so. They talked about re-evaluating the expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline project, but they did not do so. They promised to provide cost analyses for all bills, and they have not done it. They talked about lowering taxes for the middle class. We are examining the tax reform right now because the tax rate was supposed to drop from 11% to 9%. That was an election promise. Instead, the government wants to raise taxes for the middle class, businesses, and entrepreneurs across Canada. The Liberals were supposed to reduce the federal debt-to-GDP ratio by 31% in 2015-16, but they failed to do so. They wanted to immediately begin reinvesting $3 billion over the next four years to support home care, and that has not been done. That is eight broken promises, and I have not even come close to mentioning all of them. They also promised to set a cap on how much can be claimed through the stock option deduction, and they failed to do that too.

The Liberals promised not to buy F-35 fighter jets and to immediately launch an open and transparent bidding process. Once again we see the words “open” and “transparent“ getting bandied about a lot, but they do not really mean anything.

The Liberals promised veterans that they would cover the cost of four years of post-secondary education for every veteran who wanted to go back to school, but they did not do so. They talked about investing $100 million to give veterans' families better support, investing $80 million a year to create a new education benefit for veterans, and restoring lifelong pensions for soldiers wounded in action, but they did not do any of these things. I see that I am running out of time, but I still have many more examples. The Liberals have broken so many promises that I will not have time to mention them all.

The Liberals promised to invest $300 million more in the youth employment strategy in order to create 40,000 jobs, including 5,000 green jobs during each of the next three years. We know how much young people need work experience, but the Liberals did not follow through. They talked about investing $40 million annually to help employers create new internship opportunities, but that did not happen. They said they would change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons to put an end to the use of omnibus bills that prevent proper debate in the House, but that did not happen.

They promised to invest $50 million more a year in the post-secondary student support program, but that did not happen. They said they wanted to immediately eliminate the 2% funding cap for first nations programs, and Lord knows that they are constantly saying that they are working hard for first nations, but that did not happen. They promised to guarantee indigenous communities the right to veto the development of natural resources on their territory, but that did not happen. It goes on and on.

The government told us that it would introduce a bill to guarantee more transparency. We are currently seeing the opposite. It is nothing new. As the experts I cited said, we are taking one step forward and two steps back.

Despite their virtuous election promises, the Liberals have failed to make the government more open and transparent. A government that chooses what information to publish and when not to be accountable to Canadians is dishonest. In fact, the Liberals are giving themselves the power to refuse to respond to requests for access to information that they find embarrassing. As a result of the Liberals' proposed changes, Canadians will have access to less information. The Liberals are doing nothing to correct the delays that have become irresponsible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I also thank my Conservative colleague for his speech.

It is important that our access to information system work well for Canadians. At present, there are no limits to the number of requests an individual can file or regarding the scope of the request.

A number of members have taken aim at that aspect of Bill C-58, including my colleague, and I have a question for him.

Our system is currently being delayed by frivolous and sometimes vexatious requests. With this bill, we want to change that, because it is unfair to Canadians who file legitimate access to information requests.

Is the member aware that several provinces and territories have a different version of the legislation we are proposing to protect the effectiveness of their respective access to information systems, and that that is also the case for Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom?

I heard several concerns regarding our decision, but I have to ask the following question: do we not have a duty to make the system more effective for Canadians who submit requests in good faith, and to reject those that are not in good faith and are frivolous and vexatious?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very relevant question. My answer is that, regardless of what the other provinces or other countries are doing, I think that we should always be comparing ourselves to the best.

The best way to prevent subjectivity in the decision of whether to accept or reject a request is for the government to realize that it is a bad idea to say that it can no longer make the information available based on the excuse that some people will abuse the system.

People are getting cynical. They have the impression that they do not have access to the information they need to make an informed decision about what their governments are doing. Scientists and researchers who want to do a decent job of auditing and monitoring parliamentarians are unable to do so. They do not have access to the information they need because the system is too cumbersome.

The government should make all the records available and make a list of them so that people who want access to some type of information or another can get it.

Today, in 2017, the technology is there. New start-ups run by bright people are popping up all across the country. They could easily set up a system with a list of all of the available records. Canadians, researchers, and oversight bodies would be free to choose what they want and would have access to the actual information from the get-go.

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

Mr. Speaker, given the Harper government's record, the member's new commitment to transparency and access to information is refreshing. I am interested in the member's thoughts on the major loophole that remains in Bill C-58. I would like his comments on the failure of the Liberals to keep their campaign promise to include the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices in being subject to access to information requests.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska has 45 seconds or less.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can answer that in five seconds.

My colleague is absolutely right: that is a major loophole. That is the biggest flaw in this bill, and as I see it, if we do not have access to information from ministers' offices, which is to say from the government itself, then all of this work, the Liberal government's attempt to introduce a supposedly more transparent bill, is a total write-off.

That is why we have to oppose the bill, and I hope people will have transparent access to that information so they can see what the government's real intention was.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to oppose Bill C-58. That is about as clear and transparent as it gets.

This is about yet another broken Liberal promise. My colleague just listed off at least 20 broken Liberal promises. The Liberals made promises during the campaign. In fact, when he was just an MP, the Prime Minister himself introduced a bill promising openness and transparency, but we see none of that in this bill. It seems to me that our friends in power have developed a nasty habit of breaking their promises, and Canadians are clearly getting sick of it. This is not the first time, and it will probably not be the last.

I get the feeling that the sunny ways are about to be gone.

One of those election promises was electoral reform. That was no minor Liberal promise; it was extremely important. However, when the committee finished its work and tabled its report, the Liberals realized that Canadians clearly saw through their charade. In other words, the Liberals' real objective was to bring in a preferential ballot system, which would put them at an advantage. In the end, given that the committee report did not support the Liberals' position, they decided to abandon that promise. When you abandon a promise as important as electoral reform, how Canadians vote for their elected officials, basically you are telling them that they cannot be trusted. That is what we heard from Canadians.

The government struck an independent committee, but it had to be changed because initially, it had a Liberal majority. Pressure from the four opposition parties, including the Green Party, made a difference. From that moment on, the Liberals dropped the whole thing and the promise changed. In the case of Bill C-58, once again, the Liberals are reneging on an election promise and doing the opposite now that they are in power.

Earlier, my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable and I counted the broken Liberal promises. We got to 20 broken promises, but there are more yet. By breaking all these promises, the government is sending a message to Canadians that fuels cynicism. During the election campaign, the Liberals promised they would inform people better and increase transparency in ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. However, two years later, that is just another broken promise. This is unacceptable. That is why I am voting against this bill.

Over the past few weeks, a number of people have spoken out against this bill. Some organizations that were rather tough on the Conservative Party when it was in power are now being just as tough on the government in power. They are making statements worth noting. For example, when the government promises clarity and transparency, then it has to live up to that, but the Liberal Party that is in power is really not up to the task.

The Liberals said they would make all of the information exchanged within ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office accessible. What kind of information are we talking about? At what point did that information become irrelevant to the people? The moment the Liberals introduced this bill.

Let me make sure we all understand what is going on. When the government came to power, it decided to take a close look at an act that has been around since 1983 and modernize it. That is all well and good, but earlier, I heard parliamentary secretaries say that they had covered a substantial portion of it. A substantial portion of it? Why not modernize the whole thing? It looks like they have a problem with disclosing information or making any information public that could come back and bite them. That is my conclusion based on what I heard today.

I have been listening to the debate since early afternoon, and every time an MP or a parliamentary secretary talks about the bill, we get the feeling that they deliberately left out the obligation to make the information clear and transparent so they would not get trapped by the information that is circulating, especially within the Prime Minister's Office.

If the journalists who defend the democracy that these MPs serve each and every day here in the House cannot have access to the information that is relevant to Canadians, how can they do their jobs properly? It is essential that the bills we put forward not be half measures. That way, we can ensure they meet their stated objectives. The Liberals are saying very little yet again, and the answers they give are all the same.

Sadly, after promising Canadians the world in 2015, the government is keeping neither of these promises. There are organizations that act as watchdogs of Canadian democracy. Most of them are non-profit organizations and are totally independent from any government, like Democracy Watch, for example. These organizations are very critical of the work we do, and rightfully so. They spend an enormous amount of time analyzing everything we parliamentarians do on a daily basis in order to strengthen our democracy, to increase transparency and to improve communications with Canadians. They were very outspoken, to put it mildly, about the current government. They said that the bill represents not one step forward, but two steps back.

A sentence like that says a lot about the relevance of the bill and how it was designed and drafted. I can imagine being the Prime Minister, who in 2015 promised to be open and transparent and to allow all Canadians to see everything that happens in the ministers' offices and in his own office. Once in his office, however, he realized that not everything that happens in ministers' offices, and especially the Prime Minister's Office, can be disclosed to the public.

What information does he not want to make public? That is a very relevant question, and one that we should put to the Prime Minister. We will be sure to do so. A government does not introduce legislation for no reason. A government introduces legislation because it really wants to keep a promise. I say again, 20 promises have been broken so far; my colleague listed them earlier. Bill C-58 is definitely not the first broken promise, and it will not be the last.

[Denis Paradis, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by commending the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup on his spirited remarks, as well as the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, who spoke before him.

First, I would like to say that our government is all about transparency and consultation. Just look at all of the consultations that this government has held compared to the Harper government. My colleagues were not part of that team, but one need look no further than the consultations that are being done now.

For example, when it comes to filling job openings in the government, there is a consultation process conducted by independent groups, and people have to apply. That is not how things were done before.

It is also important to look at what has happened in the Senate. All of the rules have changed. People have to apply for a seat in the Senate, and the files are analyzed. That is a major change, as far as transparency and consultations are concerned.

I think we are certainly on the right track, and I would like to hear my colleague's comments about this right track to transparency that we are currently on .

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi, but he just left himself wide open.

We are talking about openness and transparency. My colleague is the chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Last spring, we witnessed the worst possible debacle around the appointment of a commissioner of official languages. There was no openness or transparency. Everything was done in secret. We found out from journalists who had conducted investigations that the candidate, Ms. Meilleur, had donated $5,000 to the Liberal Party. That is a prime example of what this government did not do and what it should do with regard to openness and transparency.

I thank the member for Brome—Missisquoi for making my job so enjoyable.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Ladysmith mayor would be very happy to hear his municipality named first. We will work on that.

The terrible record of the Conservative government on transparency and access to information notwithstanding, I imagine that the member would share the New Democrats' deep concern that although the Liberal government is wrapping itself in a cloak of transparency and openness, in fact, the Prime Minister's Office and ministerial offices will not subject to access to information in Bill C-58.

I would like the member's comments on that and whether he shares my concern.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Today's debate is not about the appropriateness of the measures we have taken in the past, but rather about the appropriateness of the ones the government has included in the bill before us. When a government makes a promise, it must keep it. It is not rocket science. It must keep its promises. The government promised that ministers' offices and the PMO would be open and transparent, that that would be in the bill. Well, it is not in the bill. Promises made should be kept. It is not rocket science.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke of cynicism; I was struck by his choice of word.

The Conservatives knowingly restricted access to information when they were in power. The Information Commissioner conducted an investigation and concluded that political aides blocked or delayed requests without authorization.

Will the hon. member admit that the former Conservative government was not interested in transparency regarding access to information?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of transparency and openness, the Prime Minister, when he was only the member for Papineau, promised that ministers' offices and the PMO would be open and transparent and that the bill would provide for access to information. That is not the case. It is really quite simple: the Liberals did not keep their promise.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to have the opportunity to put some remarks on the record.

When I first came to Parliament, I was made a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and had the privilege of participating in the study and the preparation of what ended up being a unanimous report by the committee on what was required in order to bring Canada's access to information laws up to speed. That legislation originally was introduced and passed in 1983, the year before I was born. In my entire lifetime that law has not been changed. It seemed to me to be a pretty good idea.

A lot of things have happened in the 30-plus years since I have been on the planet, particularly electronically, things such as the Internet. We have not had a change in the access to information laws in Canada. People are chuckling and they should be. It is ridiculous to think that Canada's access to information laws, through successive Liberal and Conservative governments, were not changed to reflect the advent of the Internet. The Internet has obviously had a dramatic effect on government practices and the way government goes about its business, the way citizens go about their business, and therefore the kinds of requests they make of government and the ways in which they expect that information to be delivered.

When we were undertaking that study, the President of the Treasury Board came to committee a number of times. In all of his appearances, he was quick to get to the issue of access to information, how important it was to reform those laws because they were so dated, and how committed he and his government were to changing those laws, bringing Canada up to speed. Having a state-of-the-art access to information regime was of course a platform commitment of the Liberals, Their mantra of transparency and openness is something we have heard, ad nauseam, in this place. It was the cornerstone of the Prime Minister's private member's bill in the last Parliament, where he made a number of proposals for an access to information regime that would work properly.

Expectations, rightly, were high. This has been a long time coming. The government made it a focus within its election platform document. The Prime Minister chose to highlight that issue with his own private member's bill in the last Parliament. The President of the Treasury Board came to the committee a number of times to say that the government would do this and that it would be great.

When the Liberals finally got around to tabling a document, in light of those expectation, in light of everything the parliamentary committee has heard in the course of its study, and in light of the excellent and comprehensive report the Information Commissioner delivered to Parliament in the last Parliament, it is a major disappointment. There is just no way to get around. I do not even think that is a partisan observation, although there will be members on the other side of the House who disagree.

We looked at what the experts asked for. We looked at what the information commissioner asked for. The committee studied it and unanimously came in with recommendations. For those who need a reminder, six Liberals were on that committee. This is not coming from some kind of partisan outlying realm or something where people cannot think sympathetically with respect to the government. This is a disappointment.

A lot of Canadians work with this kind of legislation every day, not just opposition politicians. They are journalists and advocates on all sorts of issues. We have heard about the environment, health, defence policy, name it. If they are working in a public policy area, the bread and butter of that, in order to do good work, is to get some insight on what the government is doing. I know from being in this place that oftentimes what cabinet ministers have to say in question period and in the House is not the place to get insight as to what government is doing. It might not even be the place to get insight generally, but I do not want to say anything unparliamentary so I will leave it with my first formulation. I have some encouragement from these benches, but I do not think I have it from the other side. Therefore, here we are, left with legislation that is a disappointment.

On top of that, in order to mask the fact that it is a real disappointment on the substantive issues, we have heard a lot about proactive disclosure. That has been the cornerstone of the very few Liberal speeches that were offered today, none of which were made by the members of the committee who issued the unanimous report on how to fix the access to information regime in Canada. No one is arguing against proactive disclosure on the part of the government. The more that the government can offer up information to citizens, particularly that which is asked for on a routine basis, and come up with ways to make information available in a timely and proactive way, that is great. The government did not need legislation to do that. As much as the minister would have liked to bring it up when he was at committee, during the committee study and committee work, and in all that we heard from the witnesses, proactive disclosure was not the focus because we were examining the legislation. The question we were asking was how the law needs to change. The law did not need to change at all in order to have more proactive disclosure from government. There was no law prohibiting proactive disclosure of any information that the government wanted to release. I have to say at the outset that this is a complete red herring.

What we also hear often from government members and cabinet ministers is how much they look forward to the bill clearing the House. It can go to committee, and all the great ideas of the MPs can be shared. However, they fail to mention that those great ideas of the MPs were shared at committee. We had a report with over 30 recommendations on how to do access to information law properly. The stunning thing was that the government picked up on only a few of those recommendations.

The idea that this would then be referred back to committee, as if that were the place where the government would hear what other MPs had to say, is laughable. It is a waste of the time for these MPs, and it feels disingenuous; I will put it that way. That work was already done. The idea of doing that work over and over again means that the work will never stop. The work that needs to be done is the work by the government to change the law and bring in an appropriate access to information regime. We are not much closer to that, even if this law gets passed. That is part of the disappointment.

I want to get into the substance of the bill, and 10 minutes is not very long when we studied the issue for months at committee. One of the committee recommendations that the government did accept has to do with conferring order-making powers to the Information Commissioner. The idea behind that was to bring in an independent oversight regime so that Canadians would have confidence that when the government ruled it was not appropriate to disclose information, someone would be looking over its shoulder to say whether it made sense or not: “That was politically motivated, maybe it was an oversight, but that is information that should be released.”

As long as the government keeps exclusions for cabinet confidences, as it has chosen to do with this proposed bill, which do not allow the Information Commissioner to check up on whether something was properly excluded, which is the case with exemptions, not to get too technical, but one could have mandatory exemptions as opposed to exclusions. That would at least allow the Information Commissioner to review these instances.

However, it did not do that. Even where the government did pursue one of the recommendations of the committee, it did not bring in the other infrastructure we require to realize the goal of that recommendation. That is, to have an instituted independent oversight over government decisions about what to release and what not to release. I would say that it has failed significantly in that regard.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to address some of the main arguments that we have heard the Liberals making in the chamber today with respect to this bill, and to show why they are deficient in my view, as well as to speak to at least one of the substantive items within the legislation. If we had we more time, I would have been happy to provide further thoughts about the inadequacies of the legislation.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.