Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of my constituents, I'd like to support the bill. I really don't have as much concern as some of the Members have regarding the cost. I think that the $1 million cost is a figure that was put forward, but I really don't know how much it might cost. We're not creating a whole new bureaucracy by implementing this new act.

One of the things I'd like to target is with regard to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and also with regard to the information that the individual can obtain about himself. One of the things that this does, at least in my opinion, is that if a person who is on social assistance is refused, I think he should have every right to know why he is being refused. He has the right then, also to look at his own files.

The other thing is with regard to job interviews. In a time of financial difficulties, if a person is refused, I think he should know why he is being refused. The same should be the case for educational levels. Perhaps some people might find that what they have as far as their level of education may hinder them from getting a job or having an opportunity to get a job.

And, of course, with regard to training. That's another area where recommendations that are done for the purposes of training could very well be determined by people other than the individuals themselves. They should know why they've been refused.

As much as I support the bill itself, I support more the section in which the Protection of Privacy Act was located. It is the individual who will know the information necessary about why he has not been given an opportunity for a job or a training position, or whatever the case may be.

I just wanted to bring that up, because maybe the act itself is kind of rich. A lot of people see it as a luxury thing. I think it's for the little guy out there for whom this bill is being designed. For the people who can afford it too, access to information provides information with a fee. But for anybody who cannot afford it, the act is also designed so they may obtain information without a fee.

At one time, we also had some concerns about not everybody having equal access. With the section regarding translation and so on, I think we have it now so that a recommendation is put forward for the government to provide the information where it is in the public interest.

I would say it's those people who cannot read or write who would be given the opportunity...I don't know how the government is going to design it and I don't know how much it's going to cost. But I would like to think that for those people, if in fact, they've been refused because of lack of education or because they don't speak the English language, this act would serve as another way of telling them what the reason was. What the individual does with that information is up to the individuals themselves. But at least, if my mother was to ask for a janitorial services job, I think she has just as much right to go to the school and ask why she never got the job and get someone to translate the information to her.

I think the bill helps the people who need this kind of information. For those who don't need it, it certainly is a luxury.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I made comments before when we were dealing with the committee report. My position hasn't changed, even though there have been a lot of good arguments against supporting this bill. But, for the record, I do support the passage of this bill and will be voting accordingly.

Just some comments on the comments made by a lot of my colleagues and the Minister, too. There were a lot of references to the cost of implementing this bill and some references made to a document. I am just curious what document is being referred to? What document contains the costs of implementing this bill and is that document available to this House?

I asked a question about where this information comes from, to the Minister.

When was it tabled, and can I have a copy of that information?

Thank you, Mr. Minister. On my list of speakers I have Mr. Koe, Mr. Lewis, and Mr. Allooloo. Mr. Koe.

Thank you. I have more comments. Going through the act, the obligation is to appoint an Information and Privacy Commissioner. It doesn't say it shall be full time, it doesn't say it shall be part-time, or whatever. It just says that one shall be appointed. It could be for one day a year. I guess a lot depends on the number of requests that one gets. Also, it doesn't say that each department has to have an officer. It says a Commissioner may appoint or delegate. It doesn't say they have to be outside the current bureaucracy. I assume they can delegate from within. The same goes with assistants and other staff. I assume there are powers to use what we already have.

The point I'm making is I assume that the proposed budget the Minister is referring to has been prepared by his department or his officials, and knowing how budgets are prepared, this may be a little luxurious, to use a word, maybe a little extravagant. I haven't seen it so I am not sure what's in it, but as my colleague from Yellowknife North mentioned earlier today, there is probably a lot of room for saving costs and using the systems and the mechanisms that we have in place, and it is on that basis that I support this information. As the Minister mentioned, the coming into force provision is two years from now, December 31, 1996, so there is a lot of time to look at measures of how you set up and implement this act. That is all I wanted to say. Mahsi.

Thank you. Mr. Lewis, I believe you are the next speaker on the list.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have listened with interest to the flow of this discussion, and it reminds me of so many other ones where we deal with a bill where there is hidden reluctance. The reluctance surfaces when you hear all the principles being espoused of what a good idea this is and so on, however, the cost is the problem. The new bogeyman, if you like, is the cost now. There is nothing in the act that talks about costs. It talks about the principle of governments that are in the business of creating records. That's what they do all the time. They are always putting stuff onto paper. So what is the big deal about making a piece of paper that you have created available to somebody else? How much work is involved in that? It seems to me that the simplest act in the whole bureaucracy is to make something available that you have already committed to a piece of paper, because that's what this act is all about.

So I agree with those comments that have been made that really, you don't need a complex system to deal with providing information that you already have. The big problem with our government may be finding it because we don't have a proper records management system, in my opinion. It's improving, but for 10 years they have struggled with the problem of how you organize your records so that you can get access to them. That may be a problem that is the hidden one that hasn't really come out in this discussion and in this debate.

However, if you really want to do something, if you are really keen to do something and you want to do it efficiently and within budget and so on, there are ways of doing this. One of them would be fee for service. If the government is open and provides information as it's asked for, this guy is going to be out of work with nothing to do. If you just simply say, there's not a problem if you want to know what we are doing about this or about that, this Commissioner would be virtually unemployed. It would be just a title, and you would give him a dollar a year for the title, but you can find that out after you have worked with it for a year or two to see how much work is generated because of the reluctance of government to provide the information that the people have paid for anyway. It's their information. They paid for this. It's their government.

So, it seems to me that problems have been created where perhaps none exist. I wouldn't want us to get bogged down into the argument about the tremendous cost of setting up this office. I would remind Members that it was an Ordinary Member, a private Member, who tried to introduce it into the House in the last Assembly, and it was the government itself that didn't want that to happen and decided to take ownership of the process because they didn't want to trust Ordinary Members to do it in a way that maybe would make the government too uncomfortable. So, it's been an on-going issue. And, in my view, having looked at this act carefully, I don't understand what anyone is afraid of.

I had experience in the last Assembly, Mr. Chairman, of working on what was, at that time, during the four years I was a Member of the 11th Assembly on environmental issues. Eventually we got an Environmental Rights Act, because, if you look at Hansard, during the last Assembly environment came up all the time. In every session it was the major issue that came up. I won't go through the long list of those issues that were raised, but it was, believe me, a major issue.

Since the Environmental Rights Act has been passed, and there was tremendous controversy among the mining people about all the damage it is going to do, all the hurt and how it was going to drive investment away. We were lambasted right across the country in the Northern Miner. All the mining people saw this as a terrible thing that we were doing. That bill has been used three times, I believe. There is no huge bureaucracy. There may have been some costs in asking people to do jobs that they are hired in our government to do anyway. We have experts that do this kind of work. That is the kind of work they do. So I don't see that that act cost this government anything, despite all the terrible predictions about the damage it would do and the tremendous costs it would cause our industry and our economy and everything else.

I believe that this act is a very straightforward act, and I fail to comprehend how simply providing a record to somebody else that we already have is going to cost $1 million. It makes no sense to me. I would like to have the government reconsider this reluctance based upon costs, because it seems to me that there's been some subtle persuasion going on here to try to get this bill maybe revamped or reworked or delayed, or whatever you want to call it, on the basis of the terrible financial position that we are in, and that argument could then be used by Members to convince their constituents that that's the real reason why.

I really want to support it, but I am convinced that we are in such terrible shape, we can't afford this luxury. So I would urge Members to think carefully about this one. I don't see this as having the huge impact that people really believe it is going to have because if we as an open government are doing our job, this guy won't have much to do.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. On the list, I have Mr. Allooloo. Since he's not in the committee, I have Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to make a few comments on Bill 6. I am going to be supporting this bill, basically because what the public wants is access to information so that the government will be more accountable and more open, and are the position that I think everybody in this Legislative Assembly took three years ago when we started. We wanted a more open government, and one of the ways of doing it is to have a bill such as this introduced in this House. It's the first bill of its kind. I understand that it was attempted in the past legislation but it did not succeed, but at this time, I think there are enough people here supporting it that it will probably pass. I think it is good for the people in the communities. There are people who are concerned with government. There is a perception out there that government is not providing all the information that it should, and I agree with that. This government is to provide programs and services to people in the communities, and decisions and policies are made, and are not shared with the people who we are supposed to be serving. As a result of that, a bill such as this has been asked for so that information that the government holds will be accessible to people in the communities. If that is one way of doing it, then I would support it.

There's a cost attached to it. I understand that it is quite substantial, and the Minister did say that they will look at it, and the bill itself isn't really hard and fast on that. There is a provision for a Commissioner to be put in place, whether it be full time or part time. That sort of thing can be worked out. It will be two years before that could happen, so we have plenty of time to deal with that.

In closing, I just want to say that there's a price for democracy, and if the price is $1 million a year or perhaps even $500,000 a year, if that's what it takes for community people to have this access to information, then I will support it. Mahsi.

Thank you. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. The time being 6:00 pm, I will recognize the clock and report progress. I would like to thank the Minister and the witnesses for appearing before the committee of the whole. Thank you very much.

Item 21, report of committee of the whole. The honourable Member for Natilikmiot, Mr. Ningark.

The motion is in order. May I have a seconder for the motion? The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Zoe. To the motion.