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Virtue signalling has become a shorthand characterization for the spouting of superficial, platitudinous, supposedly high-minded, morally correct commitments with little intention of fulfilling or living up to these commitments. I am sure that this is a phrase that was coined only in the past few years, but it could well have been custom designed for the current Liberal government. They may have noticed recently that the Liberals are somewhat sensitive to discussion of the emptiness of their virtue signalling in policy pronouncements. Members will be forgiven if they have lost track of the number of Liberal promises broken, not across the entire Liberal policy spectrum but here in Bill C-58 alone. While these proposals were not acted upon at that time, I am pleased to report that the bill before us today addresses many of these important recommendations. These included extending the act to the House of Commons, Parliament, and the Senate establishing broader access to government records, including those in ministers' offices and those produced for government by contractors permitting institutions to not process frivolous and vexatious requests granting the Information Commissioner order-making powers providing more training and resources to federal institutions and strengthening performance reporting. The task force's 2002 report, “Access to information: making it work for Canadians”, made 140 recommendations for improving access to information at the federal level. Around that same time, the access to information review task force commissioned numerous research papers and consulted Canadians, civil society groups, and experts across Canada. In 2001, it added more national security protections. There is no oversight by anyone afterward to verify the right to an exemption from the request for access to the information. If we dropped the ball on this fundamental issue regarding the scope of the legislation, then that is really too bad, because the offices will just continue to refuse access to information requests. We have a prime opportunity here to set limits on this exemption so that the Information Commissioner can obtain information and determine for herself whether the documents are truly confidential or whether they are documents that might be subject to the Access to Information Act. The person has no recourse when their request is refused.

Currently, if someone makes a request, the offices can simply say that it is out of the question, that no one has the right to that information, and that it is a confidential document without providing further explanation. The system would be routinely reviewed so that the information that would be proactively disclosed would remain relevant and of interest to Canadians.Īlso, there was no effort to limit what the Prime Minister's and ministers' offices can use as an excuse for denying access to information. This would create an obligation to proactively publish information that is known to be of interest to Canadians. For the first time, the act would also apply to the Prime Minister's Office and ministers' offices, senators and members of Parliament, institutions that support Parliament, administrative institutions that support the courts, and more than 1,100 judges in the superior courts. This new part of the act would apply across more than 240 government departments, agencies, and crown corporations. This would entrench in law for this government and future governments the requirement that government organizations proactively publish a broad range of information in a timely manner and without anyone having to make an access to information request. First, the bill would amend the act to create a new part relating to proactive publication.