Mr. Speaker, it certainly is gratifying to know that the spirit of Christmas has fallen upon this House. It was interesting listening to the debate this afternoon.
Earlier this year Information Commissioner John Grace included in his annual report 43 recommendations to close loopholes in the 10 year old Access to Information Act. Mr. Grace stated: "The first decade has shown that the government bent on secrecy can certainly diminish the effectiveness of the access law".
Mr. Grace goes on to say that he wants the new government to have the self-confidence to be scrutinized and the fortitude to be forthright.
Motion No. 304 gives the Liberal government that golden opportunity to take this first crucial step toward restoring Canada's faith. At the top of page 92 of the red book which starts by talking of initiatives to "restore the confidence in the institutions of government", it certainly seems like the Liberal government in the spirit of this motion would have to agree with Motion No. 304.
The information commissioner's recommendation No. 43 states that the access act be extended to all federal government institutions including special operating agencies, crown corporations and wholly owned subsidiaries, any institutions to which the federal government appoints a majority of governing body members, the Senate, the House of Commons, the Library of Parliament and all officers of Parliament.
During debate on motion 304 of November 17, I was listening very carefully to the member for St. Paul's. He made a couple of comments in his address to the House that I would like to repeat.
"At the time of the act"-it was passed in 1982-"there was careful consideration to which institutions should be included in the coverage of the act and which should not". Later in his address he went on to say: "We cannot assume that these were frivolous decisions as to who was included and who was excluded". I thought to myself it was worthy of doing some research on. Was it carefully thought out?
We went to the Library of Parliament to see if we could find out some information about those debates and the reasons why some corporations were excluded and some were not. An article from the Hill Times printed March 17, 1994 is headed: ``Parliament's exemption from information access act perplexing''.
The reporter went back to the key people who were involved in the drafting of the act in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Strangely enough, all of the people who were contacted said that they could not recall an actual reason for the exclusions. Then the reporter went back to the person who should really have all the information on this, the man responsible for drafting Bill C-43, Liberal minister Francis Fox. He was posed the question, why were these exemptions made? How did he respond? "You got me". That is what he said. He did not know.
We wanted to dig a little deeper into this. We went to Robert Auger, the Privy Council adviser to Mr. Fox and posed the same question. What was the reason for these exemptions? He said: "It is some kind of philosophical assumption that nobody questioned". Nobody has ever questioned this. That comes back to the debate of November 17 and the comments from the member for St. Paul's. I am certain that he did not intend to mislead this House.
Certainly the testimony I have presented today would indicate that there was not careful consideration at the time. At least we should ask questions and maybe even assume that some of these decisions were frivolous and without basis.
Crown corporations have not been open to public scrutiny and this continues to fuel the fire of voter cynicism. Canadians are demanding accountability. They want open government. Is there anything wrong with accountability and open government? It is high time that the government takes action.
Why are crown corporations exempt from the Access to Information Act? Let us look at a couple of them. In the case of the CBC and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, there are concerns that competitors would be able to gain an advantage in their respective markets through access requests.
These crown corporations continue to exist because they are financed by the Canadian taxpayer, not because they are profit making players in the competitive marketplace. This is a pretty strong argument for wanting accountability and access to information on how these corporations are operated. The taxpayers want to know how their hard earned dollars are being spent. Provisions could be made that could protect commercially viable information. Therefore that argument is also put to rest.
There have been numerous examples of the need for public access to information on crown corporations. Earlier this year the National Arts Centre spent $250,000 on a proposal to submit an application for a performing arts television network. If it had not been for the Auditor General's report, Canadians would have been kept in the dark about this ridiculously expensive proposition. The Auditor General said: "The activities of and the expenses incurred for this broadcasting project are beyond the objects and powers of this corporation".
In addition the Auditor General obtained legal opinions supporting the view that a performing arts network was outside the NAC's mandate. If the National Arts Centre had not been exempt from access to information, a private citizen might have been able to come forward with this information, an elected official of the House, or maybe even a journalist would have easily exposed this ludicrous proposal before some $250,000 taxpayer dollars were spent needlessly.
Canadians currently pay for half of the NAC's annual operating budget of $40 million. Do they not have the right to ask certain questions about the operations? The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is financed by Canadians to the tune of $1.1 billion, and yet it operates under the same veil of secrecy as the other crown corporations. Access to information would allow Canadians to question just how that $1.1 billion is spent. Canadians have the right to know.
Again I would remind the House that provisions could be made to protect the commercially viable information that needs to be protected.
According to CBC staffers, costs of production are kept secret, even within its own organization, to avoid jealousies among producers whose shows are given different budgets and to keep writers and others from knowing how little of the pie they actually receive. It is a shame.
Instead of going to Parliament the Auditor General's report on the CBC will be submitted to the CBC's board of directors and made public if and when the board sees fit. The true owners are being deprived of this information on the CBC. Who would they be? The people of Canada.
Access to information would eliminate this cat and mouse game. Again I would like to reiterate this because it is important. Provisions could be made to ensure commercially viable and valuable information would be protected.
Perhaps a crown corporation should file an access to information request just to find out for themselves what access to information really means. When information is kept secret, bureaucrats and politicians could be tempted to do things that they would not do if they were made public. The more information available to Canadians the better off the country will be.
I will give some more examples of the kinds of abuses that I am talking about. There have been abuses throughout history. Perhaps the most famous was that of the Aberdeen Marina, the Hong Kong club where Canada's foreign offices spent some $773,000 on memberships for 34 diplomats and family members. That was back in the early 1980s. Or maybe it was the so-called bridge to nowhere. Members may recall the $2.1 million structure erected in the riding of a federal Conservative cabinet minister. The only problem with the project was that the bridge when built was not connected to any road.
A more recent example, and we may never have the answer to this one, is much taxpayers paid to chauffeur, entertain and put Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide in hotels during his recent six day visit to Ottawa in January.
A local Ottawa newspaper reported that it requested the information under access to information. It was refused by foreign affairs which claimed Aristide's hotel bill was too sensitive and could lead to squabbling among other foreign visitors because they may receive lesser treatment. Do the taxpayers of Canada not have the right to know this information? I think they do.
The Liberal government red book talks of initiatives to restore confidence in the institutions of government. Gosh, that sounds good. According to my research, the government should do so soon. It has an opportunity right now. Freedom of information builds faith like few other policies build faith in the Government of Canada. It slows the build-up of dirty laundry that a future government will only be too happy to wash.
My Liberal colleagues could well learn from the information commissioner's scathing criticism of the Mulroney government's attempt to put roadblocks in the way of citizens trying to find out about how the government made decisions and what those were.
The final piece of evidence that I have today is from a gentleman by the name of John G. McCamus who was involved as a witness in the second reading of Bill C-43 in 1980. He said: "As many critics of the bill have observed, there is one highly visible category of federal agencies which have not been included in the schedule-the federal crown corporations engaged in the supply of goods and services. The exclusion of commercial crown corporations from the access scheme is, in a word, indefensible".
In closing, Motion No. 304 is about openness and accountability. The government owes it to all Canadians to have the self-confidence to be scrutinized and the fortitude to be forth-
right. The passage of Motion No. 304 will help to regain the public confidence in this institution.
