Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer on becoming a parliamentary secretary in this important field.
The amendments of which I spoke were the ones brought forward at the ethics committee by the NDP. I gave notice of 36 amendments and 20 were accepted as admissible, but none was put in the bill. I stand corrected if I gave misinformation on that.
As for the fact that the department can refuse a request but the commissioner can override it goes to an important point. There has been no suggestion that the commissioner's office, which has been strapped for resources for years—the complaint of that office every year is that it simply does not have the tools to do the job—will have the ability, in a practical way, to give meaning to that. It sounds good on paper, but whether, in practical terms, it will change anything, I do not know.
Second, there is no such approach in any of the provincial legislation. A simpler, cleaner way would be to limit the exceptions and allow order-making power in a much more robust fashion than this bill contains.