Finance committee  We haven't studied the proposal in any detail. We keep our hands full with what the government is doing with spending and taxing and the upcoming budget. Generally speaking, we believe there are serious problems with the world financial system. We believe that many of the world

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. We appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of our 70,000 supporters. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is the largest and oldest national not-for-profit, non-partisan taxpayers advocacy group. We will be circulating our re

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Dreeshen. I think it goes back to one's world view. Regarding these bonuses for executives, creative personnel, and staff, if you're trying to keep a talented programmer, an idea person, a creative person, or perhaps a star revenue producer, some

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Natural Resources Canada is not a federal department from which the Canadian Taxpayers Federation tries to obtain information. So, I cannot discuss the activities of that department.

Information & Ethics committee  There have been no cases, across the government or within specific departments or institutions, where officials did not cooperate regarding information in the areas of science or IT, for instance. This is a systemic issue throughout the federal government, and it's something that

Information & Ethics committee  I assume so.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I'm not saying that this committee or the government shouldn't consider this as a priority. We have a long and storied track record that we've earned through thousands of access to information requests and through a long history of cooperating with other freedom of informat

Information & Ethics committee  We've had some turnover. Our research staff turned over two or three years ago. We don't keep elaborate records on this. As I said, we make hundreds of these applications. We've made very few to the CBC. To give you an idea, I think the CBC has over 7,000 staff. We have two sta

Information & Ethics committee  Right. And then we appeal to the Information Commissioner and win, and they ignore the outcome.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't believe they even resorted to that. It would be ludicrous if they did.

Information & Ethics committee  No, I don't think you can make the argument. Nobody can sit here and make the argument that $1.16 billion of public funds is an efficient allocation of public funds. It clearly isn't. We live in a 200 channel universe; 190 of the channels cost the taxpayers just about nothing, an

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that's a possibility. CBC may have been in a difficult situation, but I should point out that, in our specific case, we had to get the information commissioner involved.

Information & Ethics committee  We won our case in court, but despite that, CBC refused one of our requests again.

Information & Ethics committee  I think we're talking about a systemic issue here. Any political party that moves into the Langevin Building.... We need only think back to the sponsorship scandal. The Gomery Commission was created only after a decade of the previous Canadian government putting up roadblocks. Re