Information & Ethics committee  I cannot agree or disagree. I can only tell you that the job's not getting done. If they need more funding, give them more funding to hire people who actually work—not just executives. I don't like waiting in line and having to hope that one day they'll pull me out. I'm also wa

Information & Ethics committee  It's interesting that Mr. Rubin mentioned information for parliamentarians. I know for a fact that I asked a couple of years back for some information and I got it through Access to Information. The particular minister I was dealing with asked for it through an order paper, and o

Information & Ethics committee  In my experience, I went through the sponsorship scandal, obviously, and everybody said things were going to improve. What I have witnessed since 2006 is a deterioration in society. The more the federal government accepts it, the more society accepts corruption, and you start loo

Information & Ethics committee  Excuse the en anglais. My French has really declined since I retired officially from the government. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, there is a culture of secrecy, and it's hard to explain, except that nobody wants to tell you anything. That's really what it is. It's closed units. You ask for access to information and they tell you.... As I said, the RCMP told me that what I was asking for was informati

Information & Ethics committee  Not in the last couple of years, but over the last 10 years, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Oh, no....

Information & Ethics committee  I don't put it down to a party so much as a bureaucracy, and a culture within a bureaucracy. All you have to do is look at Phoenix, which is a prime example. In the private sector, you'd be fired for the debacle. In the public sector, they were, in the worst-case scenario, tran

Information & Ethics committee  He's absolutely right. I have a right to access information, in my opinion. Am I able to access it? No. As I've said, it's like a closed door, and they keep the key, which is even worse, so they're not going to let me in, but what else can I say about it, except that the informa

Information & Ethics committee  I have the most limited experience of any of them. What struck me when you were talking about not keeping records was that text messaging is rampant in the government. They're really avoiding keeping records, and they know what they're doing, because if they text back and forth

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely nothing: I have seen really no change from one bill to the other except for the fact that the whole process has fallen apart. The idea of getting information in a timely fashion has been thrown out the window. They don't care, because they know nothing will happen if t

Information & Ethics committee  There's a simple loophole that I mentioned before. I made an access request, and I've been waiting 60 days for the acknowledgement. The officials cashed the cheque, but they have not acknowledged my access request. The 30 days that they will ask as an extension—I guarantee it—doe

Information & Ethics committee  I wouldn't even start with me, because you would finish with me.

Information & Ethics committee  We don't have them. We have never had them. The accountability act did not give them—

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.