Mr. Speaker, I want to remind viewers of this debate today and readers of Hansard that when they are watching or reading about the grandstanding and righteous indignation of Conservative members that it was the Conservative Party that put forward a promise in the 2006 election to reform the Access to Information Act and the Conservative Party did nothing to reform the act. With its culture of secrecy, that party fully exploited the weaknesses in the act.
Thank goodness we have a Prime Minister who is committed to access to information. We are reforming the act, including giving order-making powers to the commissioner of whom the member for Durham has been so congratulatory.
My question for the member is on his colleague's comments on frivolous and vexatious requests. He essentially said that we should not address that in this reform even though the commissioner and the committee recommended it, and eight provinces and three territorial governments have some variation of it. In the absence of frivolous and vexatious exclusions, the system can get completely bogged down with individuals, for example, ATIPing their ex spouses daily activities and emails.
Would the member agree that by removing those types of applications for information, the system could respond much better to the real access to information requests of ordinary Canadians?