Mr. Arvaluk, we will need to get a copy of your motion and to it translated, so we will take about five minutes to get it written and translated. Thank you. We will take a five-minute break.

---SHORT RECESS

The committee will come to order. The motion is in order, and the motion, according to our rules of the Legislative Assembly, is not debatable. To the motion. Mr. Dent.

A recorded vote is being requested. Do we have the agreement? Do we have the recorded vote? Agreed? We don't agree. Okay, thank you very much. All those in favour, please stand up.

What's the motion, for the record?

I'll read the motion. I move that the consideration of Bill 6 be deferred. Come on. Somebody wants to know what the motion is. Stand up, please. All those in favour of the motion, please rise.

Recorded Vote

Mr. Patterson, Mr. Arvaluk.

All those opposed to the motion, please rise.

Mr. Dent, Mr. Ballantyne, Mr. Gargan, Mr. Koe, Mr. Arngna'naaq, Ms. Mike, Ms. Cournoyea, Mr. Kakfwi, Mr. Morin, Mr. Nerysoo, Mr. Whitford, Mr. Lewis.

All those abstaining, please rise.

Mr. Allooloo, Mr. Zoe.

Thank you. The motion is defeated with two for, 12 against and two abstentions.

---Defeated

Does the Minister wish to go back to the witness table with the witnesses? Thank you. Bill 6, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. General comments. Mr. Dent.

Thank you. General comments from the committee? Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have detected no ground swell of support for this bill in my constituency. The members of the business community told me they supported the bill, but in discussing it further, it became clear that what members of the business community were interested in was more disclosure about contracts, lease arrangements and the government's financial relations with companies, which I think would clearly fall within the category of invasion of privileged and private relations and would not be subject to disclosure under the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I don't believe my constituents are going to take advantage of this bill, especially the unilingual constituents or constituents whose first language is not English. I believe the cost is excessive. I don't see how it can be made to be done cheaper. I think if my constituents had the choice between more housing, more mental health counselling, more suicide prevention, more programs against family violence, the decision would be clear that this is a luxury that cannot be afforded.

Mr. Chairman, I observed with great interest the results of the passage of the Environmental Bill of Rights Act by a previous Assembly. Despite the lofty principles on which that bill was developed and the great hopes that it would allow government to be more accountable to ordinary people, I do not believe that bill has achieved its expectations.

Mr. Chairman, I may be getting a bit off topic in referring to another bill, but the question, I think, that has to be asked today is whether we're satisfied this bill will help ordinary people get more accountability from government and get more information about the operation of government, or whether it will be highjacked by the media and special interest groups.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not satisfied the bill will achieve the lofty goals that were hoped for. I'm not satisfied the experience in the rest of Canada, with access to information bills, is satisfactory, that it has been a useful tool for individuals. I believe that, especially in a consensus government, this legislature and the ordinary MLAs have the powers and the tools to achieve accountability and access to information unprecedented in this country.

Mr. Chairman, it may not be politically correct to utter these heresies in this Legislature, but I think we have to get realistic about the fact that there are limited financial resources. When I look at the extraordinary cost of establishing an independent office that in no way can take advantage of any of the existing government offices or services, but must be at arm's length, separate, independent, I don't think we're going to bring the costs substantially down from $1 million. Maybe it will only cost $750,000, I don't know, but I don't believe the costs can be substantially reduced.

I think when the time comes to fund this independent office, what the government of the day will find is that tough choices will have to be made about housing and other critical social programs that are going to affect my constituents. I think we have to be tough-minded and realistic today and say...I don't think there have been any great grievances unresolved because of a lack of access to information in the Northwest Territories. I've seen Ministers subjected to incredible barrages of pressure, day and week on end, when a determined MLA wanted information and didn't get it. We have the tools here on hand, Mr. Chairman. All we need to do is use them.

I don't think we need a new, expensive bureaucracy to achieve the worthy goals of letting people know what is going on with their government. I think the tools are within this chamber and with the committees, which I think have incredibly powerful means to get information.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a re-election speech that I'm making here today, but I want to put on the record that I think if this Legislature passes this bill, we will be hard pressed to find the money in the increasingly difficult times that are facing us. I also think when there is a review of this bill in the Commissioner's annual report -- which I'm glad to know will be done -- we'll find that a few special interest groups in Yellowknife and a few enterprising media people will have taken advantage of a very expensive additional bureaucracy that we can't afford and that I don't really think we need.

Forgive me, Mr. Chairman, for being blunt about this, but I suspect that I represent the views of a lot of Members in this chamber who don't want to appear to be going against a motherhood principle. And, I suspect, more importantly I'm confident, that I reflect the views of the majority of my constituents. They are not asking me to have this bill passed. I'm not getting pressured that this is an important piece of legislation. My constituents are talking about jobs, they are talking about housing, they are talking about support for the family, children and social issues.

I don't think this bill is going to make one jot of difference to the things we really care about in the majority of our communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Patterson. You are forgiven by the chair. I have Mr. Ballantyne and then Mr. Arvaluk. Mr. Ballantyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am going to support the bill but I have a few observations about this legislation and legislation like it across the country. Mr. Patterson is right, it is a difficult piece of legislation for elected officials not only to vote against, but to speak out against because it has become symbolic, in many ways, of the new politics. It has become a metaphor for open government.

The reality of the situation across the country is that this sort of legislation hasn't really done everything that it is supposed to do. Jurisdictions that have this sort of legislation still have frustrations, although frustrations of a different type. Where I will disagree with Mr. Patterson is about people's concern about it. I think Mr. Lewis made a valid observation about this and that is, when nothing is happening, then people don't really worry about this sort of legislation. But, if an incident occurs where somebody is denied access to information -- and it has happened in our government -- then the public at large does get worried. It is something that comes and goes. It is a reality of modern politics.

I will support the bill and I supported this principle the last time it came around. But, I would like some assurances from the government about the cost. The problem is always that we model our legislation and our administrative support mechanisms after southern jurisdictions, which have the major advantage of economies of scale and size that we don't really have. I really don't think that, at least at the beginning, we need a full-blown administration. I really, really don't think that we need to spend $1 million a year on this. I would find it fairly incredible if we did.

What would happen then is that the very bureaucracy we set up in order to make people's access easier becomes a new block. It seems to me that it's quite simple. Generally, the public, themselves, want pretty easy access to things that shouldn't give us any problem. There is actually legitimacy to their argument that, for whatever reason, government bureaucracy is overprotective. It seems to me that each deputy minister can be charged with the responsibility of ensuring that information that is not on the protected list should go out as a matter of course. It is not something that has to be a huge bureaucratic log jam. I guarantee that it will cause a lot of problems and we can't afford it.

To start off with, I'm not even sure that you need a full-time Commissioner. You may want to start off with a part-time Commissioner and have the deputy ministers responsible for administering it. And, if after six months, it is not working, then the government may want to have a look at it. At this point, the same public that is concerned about not having access to information is also just as concerned about the bureaucracy increasing. It's another strong public concern.

What the public would want is when they want information, they want a simple way to get it, without a big hassle. We shouldn't have a problem with that. The whole thing should run, I would think, fairly smoothly, without over complicating it with some complex administrative body.

When I finish my opening comments, I would like to ask the Minister for some assurances that he will seek ways to do this, which will make it more efficient, I think. Putting more money into it, as we have learned in government over the years, won't necessarily make it more efficient. It doesn't necessarily mean the public is going to get what they want.

I made a comment before that if we are going to go this route, as with the ombudsman route and the Languages Commissioner -- there are really so many different public advocacy models we can fall into -- we don't have the luxury of Ontario's multi-billion dollar budget to do it. That's the reality. The 70,000 people who live in the Northwest Territories would have to understand that, like a community of that size in other places, they can't have everything. It is not possible to have everything.

Here we have 24 MLAs, 60 mayors, 20 chiefs...There are probably about 1,500 elected representatives. There are strong women's support groups, there are strong labour support groups, there are strong chamber of commerce support groups. Our 70,000 people have a lot of advocates here already.

I will support this particular bill because we've built up expectations here in the Assembly over the past five years. I really think that, at this point, we have to deliver something. But, back to my point, if you really want one group of people who really don't have advocates, it is children. If you want to spend $1 million, spend it on a children's advocate.

Hear, hear.

To me, that would make a lot of sense. But I don't hear the unions calling for that. I don't hear the chambers of commerce calling for that. I don't hear any of the powerful interest groups calling for that. The reality is, we've talked about this for a long time, the Legislation committee and the department have done a good job to try to put together a package that is acceptable, and, at this point, my only concern is that of money.

I will end now and will ask the Minister to give me some assurances. Surely there are ways to accomplish the spirit of this bill without spending $1 million plus a year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne. Mr. Minister.

Thank you. General comments. Mr. Ballantyne.

Thank you. I don't want the Minister to misunderstand. I think it's good that the government put forward one concept of how much it's going to cost. My point is that I don't necessarily agree with that cost. I have been consistent with this bill. I am going to support the bill, but it doesn't mean that I have to necessarily agree with a certain approach that the department is contemplating with the administration of the bill.

Again, I think it is not just a matter of shaving a little bit off of it. It is dependent on how you look at it. If the Minister is correct, as he probably is, that the costs will be driven by public demand, then a lot of that public demand is driven by how open the government is before problems get to the Commissioner. I would guess that a very good proportion of complaints that the Commissioner will get could be dealt with earlier if the deputy ministers are given strong direction to give out information. The problem is that if you are going to funnel it all through this one office, as it were, and you are going to need more and more people to do it. Rather than do that, the thought is to use the strengths you already have in the people you already have in government, to support the Commissioner.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, I don't think, and you don't have to set up a specific -- I mean, all we are talking about is giving out government information. We are talking about giving out the information that they have. We are not talking about them creating new information, so the very departments that have the information surely, with some fairly simple guidelines, should be able to put it out.

What happens now, when you look at some of the freedom of information legislation in Ottawa and other places, is that it has become more of a hassle because now you have to have a whole group of people to look through every piece of information and sort of decide what is good and what's bad. I mean, a lot of it is common sense. We are a small jurisdiction, and if occasionally, we send out the instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb, well, that will happen occasionally. But, with all due respect to our government, there is really not a lot that we do that is really going to have a dramatic impact on the world if it gets out. I mean, let it go.

My point then, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, is could we just relook at the way of doing it, and I don't think we have to follow the model that has been put forward in southern Canada, which, I might say, hasn't worked particularly well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.