"Ottawa getting out of the business of running experimental farms."

"Ottawa closing experimental farm".CBC News, February 25, 2005. 

House of Commons Ottawa November 15, 2005: Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre,CPC): "moved that, in the opinion of the House, the Access to Information Act should be amended to: (a) expand the coverage of the act to all Crown corporations, all offices of Parliament, all foundations and to all organizations that spend taxpayers' dollars or perform public functions; (b) establish a Cabinet confidence exclusion, subject to review by the Information Commissioner; (c) establish a duty on public officials to create the records necessary to document their actions and decisions; (d) provide a general public interest overide for all exemptions, in that the public interest should come before secrecy in government; and (e) make all exemptions discretionary and subject to an injury test."

House of Commons Ottawa November 15, 2005: Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit, CPC) "Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre for this move today. It is certainly timely. For instance, recently the government announced it would close four experimental farms in Canada, one is in my riding. I submitted an access to information request to find out what possibly could be the reason for these closings."

"I received the information in response to my request, which is the best tool to do my job. Page after page is blanked out. Page 8 is a letterhead with nothing on it. Pages 25, 26 and 27 are deleted. Page 62 is deleted, and so on. This is an experimental farm. This has nothing to do with national security. It has nothing to do with our competitiveness. It has nothing to do with people who would risk their jobs. Again, the government has just denied me the information to deal with an issue in my riding."

"Could the member explain why these would be exempted and could he suggest what he would do if he were in a position to enhance these regulations to make departments provide the information that we need to do our jobs and to hold them accountable? After all, access to information is totally about accountability. In a case like an experimental farm we should have access to all the information."