House of Commons Hansard #435 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was change.

Topics

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

8:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Geoff Regan

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #1366

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

8:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Geoff Regan

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from June 13 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate 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.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Geoff Regan

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has 12 minutes remaining in his speech.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:35 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have to comment on what just transpired. The Liberals are slapping each other on the back because they passed a motion that is meaningless. Tomorrow they are going to rubber-stamp the Trans Mountain pipeline, which will dramatically increase greenhouse gas production in the country. The hypocrisy is beyond belief.

That is extremely appropriate when we see the hypocrisy contained in Bill C-58, which should be called “another Liberal broken promise act”, because, again, the Liberals are breaking the solemn commitments they made back in 2015.

Members will recall that back in 2015, the Prime Minister made a whole series of commitments, including that he was going to work with all members of the House of Commons. Instead what we have seen is a new tool, never used in parliamentary history before, gag closure.

It is a particular motion that does not allow opposition members, once the gag closure motion is moved, to even utter one word on government policy, to offer any amendments, to ask any questions, to, in any way at all, intervene on the bill, the legislation, the business before the House. It has been moved several times already in the last couple of weeks. So much for the solemn commitment to improve the functioning of Parliament.

The Liberals also promised they would do away with omnibus legislation. The Harper government was renowned for that, throwing a whole bunch of different bills into one piece of legislation and throwing at the House of Commons. It was profoundly disrespectful to members of Parliament and profoundly disrespectful to Canadians.

However, the Liberals have doubled down over the last four years. They have now presented more pieces of massive omnibus legislation than in any other Parliament in our history.

Members will recall that Liberals and the Prime Minister talked about bringing in democratic reform, actually reforming our election process so every vote would count. That would make a lot of sense. Canadians voted for that. The Liberals only got 39% of the vote and yet they have 100% of the power in the House of Commons. They bring in gag closure, they bring in omnibus bills and that promise, that solemn commitment to bring forward democratic reform has been thrown away.

The Liberals also talked about dealing with climate change. Tomorrow they will be rubber-stamping a pipeline that will destroy any opportunity for Canada to meet any commitments that have been made internationally.

The member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie estimated that even before the pipeline, it would take Liberals 200 years to meet the Paris commitments. The planet will not exist at that time if Canada continues to be as irresponsible as the government has been, both under the Conservative government and the Liberal government.

The Prime Minister solemnly promised he would address the massive housing crisis in the country. Tragically, we know that is not the case. The Liberals said that they would address the health care crisis and promised, yet again, that they would bring in pharmacare. I think it is the third time, with a Liberal majority government, that Liberals promised to bring in pharmacare and yet have failed.

After four years, we have a litany of broken promises. Perhaps one of the most significant promises, even though this bill has not attracted a lot of interest, is the broken promise on information being provided to the Canadian public. That is why I call Bill C-58 the “another Liberal broken promise” bill.

The Liberals committed back in 2015 to provide information to the Canadian public. That makes a lot of sense. Canadians have a right to information from the government. It does not belong to the Harper government. It certainly does not belong to the Liberal government. That information belongs to Canadians.

Putting in place an effective information regime that allows people to access information, important government information, important information that should be available to the public, was a commitment the Liberals made back in 2015. Like so many other commitments, it has ended up on the scrap heap.

The Information Commissioner called Bill C-58, the “another Liberal broken promise” bill, regressive and went so far as to say that the access to information regime would be better under the status quo than under Bill C-58.

Is that not a sad commentary, that a Liberal government, four years later, has so little to show for itself except for a litany of broken promises solemnly delivered in 2015? Canadians believed them. I certainly thought, and I think most Canadians believed, that when the Prime Minister made those solemn commitments that he had at least the intention of keeping them. However, the Liberals have not. As the Access to Information Commissioner reminds us, the bill that the Liberals have brought forward is worse than what currently exists.

How did the Liberals fall so short? Despite committing to so many things, discarding their promises on the scrap heap of broken Liberal promises history, how did they even get the access to information wrong? Four points need to be brought to bear regarding why the Liberals failed so lamentably on access to information.

To be sure, the Conservatives did the same thing when they were in power. They said they would enhance access to information for the public, recognizing that Canadians felt they should have a right to access the information that was available to the federal government. It is a fundamental tenet of democracy, that information available to the federal government is available to Canadians. When we do things in the House of Commons and speak in public, that information is available. When government ministers do things in private, that should also be available through access to information.

It is the Canadians' government. It is Canadians who choose their parliamentarians. It is Canadians who ultimately decide who governs them. Because of this, it is fundamental that Canadians have access to information.

Bill C-58, which is worse than the existing access to information law, has a number of key exemptions or shortcomings, deliberate attempts to undercut the access to information regime that the Liberals planted in the legislation. It has essentially put poison pills in the legislation. They have a beautiful title about enhancing access to information, but we must look at the details, as New Democrats do. We always do our homework and always pore through legislation to ensure there is at least a semblance of reality in what is written in the legislation, as opposed to the political spin that comes from the Liberal government.

First, there was a recommendation that the coverage of access to information include ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office. This is another key commitment from the 2015 election that has been broken. Given the incredible scandal regarding SNC-Lavalin, it is absolutely fundamental that Canadians can access information related to what transpires in the Prime Minister's Office and in ministerial offices. It is a no-brainer. So many democracies around the world have already incorporated into their access to information regimes that ministers' decisions and decisions of the prime minister's office, that type of correspondence, are subject to access to information rules. Unlike in so many other democracies, the Liberals deliberately exempted the Prime Minister's Office and ministerial offices.

Second, as the Information Commissioner has long recommended, there has to be appropriate sanctions for non-compliance. If the government or government members try to get around access to information rules, there should be sanctions for that. However, that is absent from the bill as well.

The Information Commissioner was critical of what the Liberals offered in access to information, because it would do nothing to reduce delays or extensions. This means the Liberal government can basically rag the puck and ensure that information is not available to the Canadian public.

In the last Parliament, when the New Democrats were the official opposition, we spoke out repeatedly about the Harper government doing this. It simply delayed things beyond belief to ensure that for all practical purposes, access to information was simply not available. Again, the bill would do nothing to address this.

The bill would also do nothing to narrow exemptions for ministerial advice or cabinet confidence, ensuring that, with a broad brush, the Liberals could simply stop the access to information system to which Canadians have a right.

This is the fundamental point I need to make. Yes, Liberals made a whole series of commitments that they have ripped up with complete disregard to the solemn commitments made to the Canadian public. They basically threw them out the window.

However, in terms of access to information, this is one of the most egregious broken promises. The Liberals could have approached this in an open way. They could have said that they actually do want to make sure Canadians have access to information from their government and that this is a fundamental aspect of democracy. They could have said that they would work with the NDP, because we have always been the number one champions in this House of Commons for access to information. We believe fundamentally in it, and, as in so many other areas, we and members in the past have always championed the most effective approach possible on access to information, including the member for Timmins—James Bay, who has felt very strongly about this and has worked in this regard for years.

The Liberals could have done that, but instead they rejected the NDP amendments and refused to improve this. We now have a bill before us that can only be chalked up as another Liberal broken promise. As the Information Commissioner said, the status quo is actually better than what the Liberals have produced. That is a shame, and we are voting against it.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:50 p.m.

Hull—Aylmer Québec

Liberal

Greg Fergus LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government

Mr. Speaker, the member is certainly a model of constancy. He will say on Wednesday the exact same thing he said on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday. It is as if his criticisms of this bill are in a time warp.

When the bill was introduced, there was a lot of commentary on that. The hon. member's party made a number of amendments. A number of those amendments were accepted when the bill went to committee. It was improved on the House side. It was further improved on the Senate side. The government has accepted many of the amendments that were introduced by the Senate. Indeed, the current Information Commissioner said that a lot of the issues that were raised by the former information commissioner were addressed in this bill. The Information Commissioner said that this bill should pass and that it is an important improvement on the existing legislation, which, I might add, has not been changed since the 1980s.

Would the member at least do us a favour and recognize the number of improvements that have been made to this legislation, and also the comments of the current Information Commissioner, who called upon Parliament to pass this bill into law because it is an improvement over the existing situation?

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:50 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the member in the finance committee, and I like the member very much. It is clear to Canadians that when he says that he thinks there is support from the Information Commissioner, he is hedging his bets. He knows full well why. The reality is that this simply does not pass the test.

The member also mentioned that the Liberals did accept an amendment or two. The reality is that the NDP, as the member well knows, gave notice of three dozen amendments. These are carefully considered. We took the bill and said that there are a whole range of shortcomings and the Information Commissioner believes the status quo is actually better than this bad bill, so we would go to work, as we are renowned right across the country for being the worker bees in the House of Commons. We offered 36 ways the bill could be improved, 36 ways that would strike to the heart of all the shortcomings that were offered.

If the Liberals had actually been sincere in their willingness to improve this legislation, they would have taken the vast majority, if not all, of the 36 amendments that were tabled. The record stands for itself. They did not accept any of them. That is the problem. We have a Liberal government that wants to be patted on the back for having put forward the effort but does not actually want to get to the heart of improving legislation.

After October 21, I believe there will be an NDP government, and we will make sure that legislation brought forward in the House of Commons is actually improved. Canadians should expect nothing less than very strong work on behalf of their government to make sure that the legislation brought forward does what it purports to do. That is why I think Canadians will have a surprise for both of the old parties on October 21.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:55 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He did a good job explaining the flaws in the access to information bill currently before us, but I would like to take this opportunity to say that we need to look even further. As he mentioned in his speech, the government came on the scene saying that it would be the most transparent government in the history of the universe. The Liberals talked about being open by default. However, my colleague pointed to various things that have thwarted those efforts. One example is omnibus bills, which my colleague mentioned.

How can we properly scrutinize bills when the details that will have the greatest impact on Canadians's lives are presented over dozens of pages in a bill that is 100-pages long? Ultimately, that approach means that there is very little transparency and not enough consultation on the part of the government. It is ironic that the government is always going on about consultation, since it only seems to consult Canadians when it does not want to do something. When consultation is needed to improve a bill, there is no consultation. My colleague could talk a little more about that.

Why does my colleague think the government did not adequately consult people, particularly the Information Commissioner? If the government had done its job properly, it would have produced a better bill. In the end, we did not get the intended results.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

8:55 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Beloeil—Chambly. I have been here for 15 years and I have never seen a more dedicated member of Parliament. He is a good representative for his region, which I know very well from going door-to-door in the Chambly area. He is always here and he asks questions that get to the heart of his constituents' concerns. Like many other members, I continue to be very impressed by his work, his dedication, his discipline and his way of addressing people's concerns. I thank him for his excellent work. He just asked an excellent question.

Transparency and access to information are not rocket science. Witnesses told us what to do. They said that Bill C-58 was inadequate. The Information Commissioner said that he preferred to keep the status quo rather than seeing this bill pass. The Liberals refused to listen and include in the bill all the solutions, amendments and recommendations that were proposed by witnesses and the NDP. We proposed three dozen amendments.

The Liberals had all the solutions they needed in hand. We were not asking them to do the work. We were simply asking them to agree to let the NDP do it for them, because we were chosen to be the watchdog of Canadians in the House of Commons. We are always seeking to improve legislation. All the Liberals had to do was accept the work that we did for them and for all Canadians. Unfortunately, they refused to do so. They said that they would not accept the amendments or the testimony and that they were going to do as they pleased. That is why we have here a bill that is just a tiny step forward when we could have made some real progress. That goes against everything the Liberals promised in 2015.

As the member mentioned, in 2015 the Liberals promised democratic reform. They promised to put an end to omnibus bills, which are undemocratic. They also promised to work with the opposition parties and all members. Instead, they are imposing gag orders, a bit like in the 1950s, when the opposition was prevented from saying one more word about bills once a closure motion was adopted.

For all those reasons, I would say that this is yet another missed opportunity on the part of the Liberals.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9 p.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.

He said a few things that do not match up with current facts. That is what I found a little disappointing about his speech in this debate on the changes proposed by the Senate. First, he said this did not go far enough, that it was insufficient and that it was actually worse than the status quo.

I would like to know what he thinks about the fact that this bill gives the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner the power to ensure that institutions take her advice.

They have to issue orders to institutions, including ordering institutions to release information. It also eliminates all fees, like the $5 fee, which were pretty much an annoyance for access to information requests. It requires government institutions to provide requesters with a written explanation that provides a rationale for each exclusion or exemption.

The Information Commissioner sent a letter to the committee saying that of the three things she asked for, two were given. The one that was not was because we honestly disagree that she has the order to do so.

What does the hon. member think of those specific changes to the bill?

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9 p.m.

Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Geoff Regan

Apparently, we are actually over the time for questions. Of course, I will allow the member to reply, but I ask him to do so as briefly as possible.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will need a few minutes, because I have a lot to say about the government's lack of action.

I think it is self-evident. When the Information Commissioner says that this bill is worse than the status quo, I think that comment should spur the Liberals into action. I am looking at all the rejected amendments. If the Liberals had accepted the 36 amendments suggested by the NDP, we would surely have had a healthier debate on access to information issues.

Sadly, the Liberals once again broke their 2015 promises and brought out a bill that failed to do what it was supposed to do.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise tonight and speak to the government's motion concerning the Senate amendments to the access to information proposal by the current government which, as my colleague previously stated, was a pretty major disappointment for a lot of people in the access to information community who watch this closely, including journalists. There has been some debate in the House recently about the importance of journalism and government attempts to try to buttress the industry. Whether the Liberals are doing that the right way or the wrong way, that is another debate for another day and one that we have had already.

I do not think there is any dispute that the access to information laws of a country are one of the most important tools in journalists' tool kit who cover government. It is under the access to information laws, often in the absence of an informant or someone who is willing to leak information who is on the inside, that journalists are able to get information that is the beginning of a story about something that is going on that the government does not want Canadians to know about. That is why it is important that we have a good access to information regime.

I heard members on the other side tonight mention quite rightly that Canada has not had any kind of amendment to its access to information regime since it was brought into force in 1983. That is why there was a fair bit of excitement around the idea that Canada would get an update to its access to information regime. It is why people were disappointed when, in the view of the Information Commissioner, when this legislation was first presented, she said the status quo from 1983 is actually better than what the government has proposed.

In fact, we heard at committee not only in light of the event referred to in this quote, but the Duffy scandal of the next government and the SNC-Lavalin scandal that we bore witness to here in the House this spring, the former Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, said:

When I was preparing for this committee, I went back to the request that was made by Daniel LeBlanc, the journalist who uncovered the sponsorship scandal. That request would not have met the new requirement under Bill C-58. That's a perfect example of how new section 6, as it is currently worded in Bill C-58, would amount to a massive regression.

What is interesting about that is the extent to which it shows that the rhetoric by the government around the Liberals' intentions to reform the access to information regime in a way that actually improves it did not match up with their effort in the bill. When we look at the efforts that were made at committee by my colleagues in the NDP to amend this legislation and to have those amendments summarily rejected by the government was another sign, frankly, of bad faith when it came to amending the access regime.

I was on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics at the beginning of Parliament. We heard often from Minister Brison at the time who was the lead on the file for the government, about how great this would be, that we were now going to get reform for the bill after waiting decades and decades. This was going to be the government to do it. It was going to be wonderful, great and Canadians were going to have unprecedented access to government and information about government.

When the bill was finally tabled after a long wait and a lot of pressing in the House and at committee, about when the government was finally going to get around to it, it looked nothing like the promises in the Liberal platform. It looked nothing like the Prime Minister's own ideas for access to information reform that he presented in a private member's bill in the previous Parliament. One does wonder what happened in the interim to get a bill that was such a hodgepodge.

A lot of the selling of the bill is traded on a couple of distinctions that have been abused in order to obfuscate what is truly wrong with this legislation. Example number one would be the distinction between proactive disclosure of information on the part of government and access to information by Canadians who want to access information that the government may not want them to access because it may not be in the political interests of the government of the day to have Canadians access that information. I referred earlier to the sponsorship scandal, the Duffy scandal and the SNC-Lavalin scandal, all cases where government had an interest in having Canadians not be able to access certain information.

What we heard from Minister Brison at the time and his successors is that Canadians should be happy that the government is going to voluntarily publish more information on its own terms, information that it selects and in a format that it selects. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not that Canadians should not be happy that the government is interested in making some more information available in particular ways, but that is not the point of the access to information laws.

The access to information regime is not about patting the government on the back for making certain things accessible because it wants to and is presenting it in a certain format. We do not need legislation for proactive disclosure at all. A legislative framework is for Canadians who want access to certain information that the government does not want them to have. That is the purpose of an access to information regime and it is exactly there that the criticisms of the Information Commissioner and other stakeholders, like journalists, really hit the nail on the head. It is not that there will not be more information under some other definition available, it is that journalists and others who demand certain information of the government will be in a worse position to do so, including certain amendments that have to do with the way requests for information are filed in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that the government's idea was that people should already know a lot, not about the subject they are asking about but about the specific document they are asking about, despite never having seen that document or necessarily knowing which documents exist and which ones do not. Therefore, limiting the requirements of government departments to publish information about what documents exist and expecting that the person asking is going to have to know that, would know that or could know that is an unreasonable threshold for Canadians wanting to understand more about how their government works.

Another important distinction that has been equivocated upon in order to defend this legislation that is not very helpful is the difference between exclusions and exemptions. The committee heard the importance from the Information Commissioner's point of view, but also that of many stakeholders, of moving away from an exclusion regime. When things are excluded, that means the government says information falls under an exclusion, like cabinet confidence. There is no oversight of that. There is no independent person to look at that document and say it is not something that should be protected under cabinet confidence because it is not advice to government, it was a background document or something else.

One of the examples given at committee was putting all of the relatively less sensitive information that may be inconvenient for government to have Canadians know about on a cart, roll it through the cabinet room during a cabinet meeting and then say it was in the cabinet room so it is protected under an exclusion for cabinet confidence. That would be quite disingenuous. That would be a terrible thing to do, but some of us believe that kind of disingenuity would not be unprecedented in politics. If some members on the other side are not willing to believe it of their own government, they might believe it of other governments.

An access to information regime ought to create circumstances where that is not possible and Canadians can have confidence that unscrupulous governments are not doing that. The problem with exclusion-based regimes is that they do not give Canadians that confidence. The belief of New Democrats and many Canadians concerned with these issues is that it would be reasonable to have, instead of an exclusion, an exemption where the government could say something is a cabinet confidence, it was advice to government and it ought not be released. The Information Commissioner would then have the ability to look at those documents, as someone who deals with sensitive information all the time. There are civil servants and officers of Parliament who deal with confidential documents. We are not asking for something unprecedented. In that role, the Information Commissioner would be able to review those documents and determine whether in fact it is something that ought not be released because it is a genuine cabinet confidence or something that could be released because the government of the day was abusing that exemption. That was not addressed.

In fact, New Democrats wanted the Information Commissioner to have order-making power. The Information Commissioner has a kind of order-making power under this legislation, but what the Senate foresaw, as we did in our recommendations, was that order-making power should have the force of Federal Court. One of the virtues of giving the Information Commissioner order-making power was predicated upon the idea that those orders would have the force of Federal Court. It was meant to remove one of the things that causes massive delay, which is judicial appeal of denials of access to information requests.

If the Information Commissioner is going to be able to make an order, but it does not have the same force in court, that means people are going to have to go to the Federal Court to get it to back up that order and give it the force it should have had in the first place. That is certainly a missed opportunity there. The government motion today takes out the Senate amendment that would give that authority to the Information Commissioner's order, thereby undercutting one of the important benefits of giving the Information Commissioner order-making power in the first place.

Of course, one of the features of the PMO's private member's bill in the last Parliament and a commitment in the Liberal platform was to apply the act to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices. I know that was something that Minister Brison was quite verbose about in the early days of the Parliament, and then it kind of fell out. It is funny that he should come up. It is funny that he should be the person in charge of access to information reform, because Mr. Brison, in another life in this place, was the minister responsible for defending the previous Liberal government for the sponsorship scandal. In fact, I am preceded by another member for Elmwood—Transcona, who called him the “clown prince of spin”, I believe, in relation to his performance on that file. He was, in the same form, defending the current government's reforms of the access to information laws, which really do not cut the mustard, but were being spun a good yarn by Mr. Brison. That was an obvious omission with respect to a clear promise in the Liberal platform that the access to information laws would apply to the PMO and ministers' offices. We had a very good example this spring as to why Canadians would want that to be the case.

We did see an instance around the SNC-Lavalin scandal of the importance of good note-taking when it comes to conversations between ministers and senior political staff in some cases or between ministers or between political senior staff. That is why the access to information all-party committee recommended that there also be a duty to document. Not only did we see instances where notes were decisive in testimony this spring here in Ottawa, but we know that in other jurisdictions there have been serious scandals about governments that deliberately set out to communicate among their senior political staff and ministers in such a way as to create a vacuum of documentation. That is a problem for journalists and interested Canadians who want to use an access to information regime in order to keep their finger on the pulse of what is happening in government today. However, I would say, as somebody who has made a study of history, that it is also a real loss for people in the future who are trying to understand why governments of the past made certain decisions. Therefore, it is a problem if we do not have an enforceable expectation that people in government who are responsible for making decisions about serious government resources, whether they are financial or other resources, and bringing the power of government to bear through regulation and legislation, are not required to ever document the reasons for their decision-making. How then do people understand the decision-making of that government, whether it is the government of the day or a government of the past? That is why there have been clear and consistent recommendations for a duty to document. It is a disappointment that we do not have that in this legislation.

Those are some of my thoughts that I want to put on the record. For me, the conclusion is obvious, which is that, for as much as people have waited a long time for these changes and there was a lot of hype around what these changes would mean, they do not meet the bar.

I was reading in my notes that, currently, Canada is ranked somewhere around 49th in the world for its access to information regime and if we were to pass this legislation in its current form we would ascend all the way to 46th. I submit that a once-in-a-generation reform to the access to information regime ought to move the needle a heck of a lot more than that. That is why I think it is fair for people to view this legislation as a serious disappointment.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:15 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, as we debate Bill C-58 tonight, I cannot help but share the disappointment of my colleagues on the NDP benches. We were promised that this access to information legislation would create information available essentially by default, with more transparency.

I recall that when I used to practise environmental law, the joke among all of us at the time was that Canada's access to information legislation constituted freedom from information.

Now, we know that quite a lot of amendments were made in the Senate, and I know that the hon. parliamentary secretary wants to make sure that we are not caught in a time warp where we miss them. It is important to note that a lot of those amendments came from the government side. Amendments tightened up some of the language around vexatious questions being used as an excuse to reject access to information requests. However, I still find that this legislation falls far below the bar of what was promised. We did try, as Greens, to improve this legislation. I had 18 amendments come before the committee. Lots of us, as parliamentarians, tried to improve this legislation.

Given that there were some improvements, some significant ones from first reading, is there any temptation on the NDP benches to pass it as marginally better, or is it better to defeat it because it falls so far below the mark?

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:15 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, my concern is that we are talking about a piece of legislation that has not been changed since 1983. I was born in 1984, so in my lifetime, this legislation has not been amended. It has not been changed. We can easily communicate the extent to which this act just does not pass muster by talking about the period of time during which it has not had reform. It would be unfortunate if these changes were passed and we could no longer communicate the absolute deficiency of Canada's access to information regime in a point as succinct and powerful as the fact that it has not been amended in such a long time.

There are certain benefits, perhaps, and certain improvements, but they just do not do it. There is no reason Canada should not be an example in the world of a good access to information regime. We want to pride ourselves on democracy. Of course, we still have a completely unelected and unaccountable Senate, so one wonders how one can with any real sense of consistency. That is harder to change.

One thing we can change a lot more easily is our access to information regime. I am inclined to say that there is a proper signal in the fact that changes have not been made for so long, and when we do finally make them, they ought to be the right ones, and they ought to make Canada a leader. We should not pass second best.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:20 p.m.

Hull—Aylmer Québec

Liberal

Greg Fergus LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government

Mr. Speaker, we all recognize that it has been 35 years since this legislation was updated and that at various times, different governments have tried to update it. One thing I like about this bill is that the proposed changes are supported by the Information Commissioner, who sees this bill as an improvement and would like to see it pass.

There are two elements I like a lot about this bill, and I would like to get the hon. member's opinion on them. One is that one year after royal assent, this bill would come up for revision again. What is built into the bill is that every five years, there would be a full review of this bill so that we could avoid this situation of having a piece of legislation that was last updated before the World Wide Web existed.

What does the member think of having something of that sort to make sure that this bill always stays fresh and that we have opportunities to improve it, especially given the context of the times, as information and technology change?

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:20 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am going by memory here, but when the access to information, privacy and ethics committee undertook a review of the legislation at the beginning of this Parliament, there was some fanfare about the fact that we were, after somewhere between seven and 12 years, getting to the mandatory five-year statutory review. There have been mandatory statutory reviews of the access to information regime in the past. My understanding is that this is not new, but if there are no sanctions for not conducting those reviews, we get into a situation where committees have other priorities, particularly if they are led by a government that may not have a serious interest in substantially changing the access to information law.

My understanding, when we undertook our review at the beginning of this Parliament, was that we were actually, finally, conducting a mandatory five-year review and that it had been much longer than five years. It is not that I do not think it serves a purpose, but it made me a lot more skeptical about the force of a mandatory review. I do not think it is a bad thing, but there is the question of how we actually make sure that a mandatory review takes place and whether there is any consequence if it does not.

As we talk about other mandatory reviews, my understanding is that we are not talking about any kind of enforcement regime that would ensure that those reviews were undertaken. The member knows well that committees are masters of their own domain, short of an order from the House requiring them to do this, which apparently the legislation did not do, or we would have been doing a lot more mandatory statutory reviews around here than we have.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:20 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I fail to see how this legislation is going to improve the existing situation, which is that many of the access to information requests are not being completed within the specified timeline and that the government has put any number of gag orders on government employees to prevent them from ever releasing information. I wonder if the member could comment on what would actually be helpful to add to this legislation to address the gap that exists today.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:25 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, one of the things that might be done was in Senate amendment 3, which was a recommendation from the former information commissioner. I do not know if it was a recommendation of the current Information Commissioner. If I have it right, this was an amendment that spoke to the Information Commissioner reviewing extensions. Right now, departments can effectively grant themselves extensions for requests. If requests ought to be answered in 30 or 60 days, a department can write back and say that it is going to be 200 days or three years or whatever the department figures is adequate, and they are not under any requirement to justify that to anyone.

Part of the idea was that if they were asking for an extension that exceeded 30 days, they would have to go to the Information Commissioner and make a case as to why they were not able to satisfy that request within the normal period. There might even have been some negotiation with the Information Commissioner about what was an adequate extension. Therefore, we would not just take the department's word for it. However, that amendment did not survive, in my understanding, in the government motion.

It is quite right that one of the big frustrations with the current regime, not the only one but a big one, is the massive extensions that are self-granted by government, essentially without any third-party review. I think a pretty clear way of solving that problem would be to kick the extraordinary extensions over to the Information Commissioner to ensure that they really were required. However, my understanding is that we are not going to see that here. This is another example of where we are setting the bar too low for a once-in-generation reform of our access to information laws.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:25 p.m.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues I deal with as a politician every day in my riding is an increasing sense of cynicism. A lot of the cynicism I see among many Canadians, and in fact worldwide, is based on the fact that everyday Canadians cannot get access to information. They do not understand how decisions are made. They see things happening behind closed doors, and they are very concerned.

I wonder if the member could speak to the fact that we are still not there in this country. What is the impact on the government and on the people who represent their constituents of this lack of action?

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:25 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I think that is one of the fundamental debates about access to information. I would tend to agree with those who argue that if we allow more access to information and provide more information publicly about what considerations are informing public policy decisions by government, we will end up with better public policy. We will have less of the private interests of political actors playing a role in government decision-making if people know that this is going to become public and that they may then suffer political consequences for it.

The other side of the argument, which seems to be the side of the argument ultimately backed by the government, is that somehow, by keeping the reasons for government decisions private, we will end up with better decisions in the public interest. I think that is demonstrably false.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:25 p.m.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to speak to the government motion on the Senate amendments to Bill C-58.

Before I do that, though, I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate my brother Toron and his wife Jacqui.Today is their wedding anniversary, and I know that they are spending the day with my nieces and nephew, Abby, Malcolm, Josie and Zylia. I just wanted to acknowledge that this is another day, as many of us know in this House, that we do not get to be with family. I wanted to make sure that they know that I am thinking about them today.

Today we are talking about something that is fundamentally important, which is access to information, the tools we have to access information as parliamentarians representing everyday Canadians, and how that information can be accessed by journalists and reporters in this country.

I have been in this place for almost four years. I have worked really closely with my constituents on these issues. I have talked to them about the different tools I have as a parliamentarian and where they need to go to get information. They need to feel more connected to the government and to the people who represent it here in this place. I am very passionate about this issue.

Today we are talking about Senate amendments that would improve what I felt was a bad bill by making sure that the Information Commissioner would have real teeth, real power, to address some of the issues that come up in this place.

One of the things I have found very distressing, and the member who spoke before me also addressed this issue, is how often folks request information and are given a letter from a department authorizing itself to delay. Someone asks a question and now is told that the wait will be another 200 days for that information.

One of the most startling examples was that The Globe and Mail reported in April 2018 that it took one year to receive RCMP statistics for its well-received investigative series “Unfounded”, which revealed that police have been dismissing one in five sexual assault claims as baseless. This is really important information. When we see these kinds of startling facts, we know that there is something happening in this place and in this country that we need to address. These important investigations need to happen so that we know that something in the system is not working that we need to see addressed in multiple ways. If that information is not released, how are we supposed to do our work, and how do Canadians trust us?

I asked a question earlier about cynicism. I see that growing. I see it growing all the time. I talk to people who are frustrated with the government. They feel that when they want information, they have no way of knowing it. The automatic response is that something sneaky is happening and that they cannot trust those people.

I think we need to discuss what happens to democracy when we have everyday Canadians feeling that every politician is sketchy. We have an oath in this country. We sit in these seats and represent thousands of our constituents. We have the honour, as I do, to represent hard-working people who do everything in their power to live a good life, look after each other and look after their community. If they cannot trust the people who represent them, that should concern every single one of us.

If information cannot be uncovered to understand how things work, and, when something seems unfair, why it happened, how do we build that relationship, and how do we improve democracy?

I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the member for Vancouver Granville, who used to be the justice minister. I have a deep respect for her. I have known her for many years. I am very proud to represent the nation she comes from. I am very proud to represent the people of her traditional territory.

When that happened with SNC-Lavalin, it sent shock waves through my riding. It was very personal. I had constituents from my riding calling me and saying that she was in their class, that they know who she is, that she was from their family. They could not believe what was happening. They asked, do Liberals not know who she is, because they know who she is? Constituents were frustrated by the lack of information. They were frustrated by the process that unfolded. It was very troubling to them.

When I think about that and look at that happen, it takes away that sense of trust and connectivity. It brings all of these issues to the forefront when they are not addressed in a good way, and, in my opinion, these issues were not addressed in a good way. A lot of constituents contact me and say that they still do not know what happened, but that what happened was not right.

We look at the systems, and that is important. As legislators in this place, what we look at, debate and discuss is the process, how something is going to happen. Right now, we know that the Information Commissioner still will not have the ability to review whether in some cases like that one cabinet confidence is being claimed and whether it should be claimed.

I think about this a lot. I want to see a better democracy. I was very frustrated when the government campaigned to have electoral reform. It was very meaningful. I did multiple town halls in my riding. It was really interesting. People came forward. They were not sure and they did not know if they wanted to move to a different system, but they wanted to talk to me about it. They wanted to hear information. We tried to bring people in who were non-partisan to talk about different systems and how they would work. We had a lot of intelligent questions.

I will admit, people walked out the door saying that they were not sure; they were not sure if that was the right way to go forward. However, when they were told that it was no longer a discussion, when the Prime Minister stood up and said that Canadians do not want electoral reform, people were upset. They felt that they did not get to be a part of the decision-making process. That is really important.

Sometimes people get frustrated in this House, and they let us know by their heckling. However, we need to look at these systems. We need to make sure that everyday Canadians are part of the decision-making process. When that does not happen, we should have systems in place for them to be able to find out why it did not happen that way.

Again, we are seeing a failed piece of legislation. I am really disappointed. It is another broken promise. One of the things that was talked about in the last election was making sure that the PMO and the ministers were subject to these acts. That was one of the promises of transparency, that Liberals were going to do it differently and that Canadians would see a more open, transparent government.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing, again, is that the PMO is still blocked off. It is something to really think about. When everyday Canadians cannot get access; when journalists cannot get information from these particular departments, these ministries, what are we telling people? We are telling people that their voice does not belong in those places. However, they do belong in those places. In fact, we are here to represent those very voices.

I am really disappointed in this legislation. I think we could have gone so much farther. It is time for daringness. When I listen to constituents in my riding, what they want to see is honesty, openness and an authentic touch. They do not want to hear lines repeated. Some people think that if they just keep saying the same thing over and over that people will believe them.

However, when we look at democracy, the invigoration of democracy, and when we talk about why people do not get out to vote, it is because we are allowing cynicism to grow. We are not making sure that we open these doors and allow things to go forward.

Toby Mendel, the executive director of the Centre for Law and Democracy, said, in response to this bill, “The proposed reforms are just not good enough. At this point, we need root and branch reform, not incremental tinkering.”

I am a person who stands in this House, who looks at a lot of legislation. Most recently, in my role as vice-chair of the indigenous and northern affairs committee, we looked at Bill C-92, which talked about indigenous children in care. One of the things that was really heartbreaking for me is what I see happening again and again, which is this: “We will do a little better. It will not be enough. It is not going to save people's lives in a profound way. It is not going to look at the very foundation of the things that are broken. But we are going to make it a little prettier on the surface, and hopefully that will fix it.”

A little bit better is not good enough. It is not good enough for democracy, and it certainly is not good enough for indigenous children in this country who are struggling in profound ways every single day.

We were told very clearly that the new score for Canada would be 92 out of a possible 150 with this legislation. That means we would get bumped up from 49th to 46th.

I do not like our country to be in the middle. I want our country to be challenged to do better, because I want Canada to be at the top. I want other countries in the world to see the work we are doing in this place and think they have to aim higher because of what Canada is doing. I want them to look at how accountable we are to our constituents, to the Canadian public, to our reporters, and that we are not afraid to have these discussions, even if they are really painful and really hard.

We have to talk about really painful things in the House. If we are not brave enough to do that, if we do not allow people to have the information they need to make decisions for themselves, it is like saying that we are separate. However, we are all one.

I remember one of the elders in my community, Alberta Billy, telling me that a long time ago the cedar trees were so big that they would go into the forest and pick one to build a canoe for the community. They would respect that tree and then they would make a canoe out of it to be used by the community.

We do not have those big trees anymore. We have to find two trees now and find a way for them to come together. Finding two trees that are going to fit seamlessly together is a lot of work. That is the world we live in now. We do not have those big trees.

If we look at that canoe as if we were all in this together, then we know we have a western world that came here as colonizers and we have an indigenous world and we are trying to build a canoe together.

Let us look at the fact that indigenous communities around this whole country had great systems in place. Let us look at how we can do better, be more accountable to the people we serve. That is what a leader is. It is the person who follows behind, who serves from behind. This legislation fails to do that.

Access to Information ActGovernment Orders

9:40 p.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the member for North Island—Powell River's characterization of this legislation. This is not merely a slightly incrementally important bill. The member is not doing justice to some of the very important elements in the bill.

The proposed legislation would give the Information Commissioner the authority to make sure that government information is released. The bill would, for the first time, require ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office to proactively disclose information. This is the first legislated system of proactive disclosures.

Most importantly, not only did we listen to the comments from the hon. member and from members of her party and of our government, but we also listened to members of the the Senate. Of 20 amendments that came from the Senate, this government accepted all but four of them, and they are very important ones. Where we did not accept them, there was genuine disagreement as to whether or not some elements were already included in the bill.

Before we get to the stage where we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, would the member agree that these are important and significant changes? Would she agree with the current Information Commissioner, who said that the bill should be passed, that it is an improvement, and that the bill has taken into consideration the criticisms that the previous information commissioner had about the shortcomings of the bill when it was introduced at first reading?

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9:40 p.m.

NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to answer the member's question. I have had multiple interesting conversations with that member, and I respect the fact that he is doing his job. His job is to always find a way to make his government look like it is doing some good work, and sometimes a bit of good work is done.

However, this really does not speak to the core issue. When we look at our relationship with constituents and Canadians, with reporters and the masses of people we are here to represent, there is still a sense of distress. This bill, in its form, is not going to take it to the next level. I appreciate that some of the Senate amendments have been accepted. I want to remind the member that there were multiple amendments made by the NDP, by the Green Party and so forth, and those amendments in committee were not followed through on, which was unfortunate.

One of the things that I talk to constituents about all the time is that this place should be a place of vigorous debate. It should be a place where we can listen to one another and not play so many partisan games. Unfortunately, I do not feel that we are at that place yet.

When the departments have the ability to give themselves continuous extensions, I do not know how accountable that is. They can say that they are just going to be really great.

One of the things I find interesting is that systems are important. They give us a box that we can operate in, and it leads to more accountability. When we suggest nicely that maybe something will happen, usually those things do not happen. Therefore, let us get a little more teeth in it for the Information Commissioner.