No one wants to talk about the e-mails.
Not the Premier of B.C. Not the minister in charge of the provincial government's electronic information system. Not the woman who swore an affidavit that said digital records potentially critical to a political corruption case were destroyed during the May provincial election. (Or not.)
Not the company contracted to carry out the order.
No one in government will return a phone call to discuss the broad policies and guidelines that apply to the electronic storage and disposal of government records. Officials in the government's massive, and massively expensive, public-affairs bureau refuse to respond to e-mails that deal with requests about e-mails.
All of which should give people in B.C. and across the country an idea of the level of paranoia that surrounds the issue since questions about the destruction of key government records were prompted by a front-page story in The Globe and Mail last week.
It concerned the long-running trial of three former political aides charged with fraud and breach of trust related to the sale of BC Rail in 2003. Two of the three are accused of leaking top-secret information to one of the bidders in exchange for cash and other gifts. Defence lawyers have argued that the extent to which their clients leaked any information was done with the full knowledge of Premier Gordon Campbell and the members of his cabinet and part of a strategy to drive up the sale price of the rail line.
And e-mail records from that period would prove it, defence lawyers have insisted.
Mark Hume took your BC Rail questions
Discussing the political corruption trial that is reaching all the way to the office of Premier Gordon Campbell
A government lawyer had earlier said all e-mails from the period in which the defence is seeking records – 2001 to 2005 – had been destroyed. But then The Globe and Mail revealed that an affidavit was filed last week indicating that many of those records were ordered deleted as recently as May, during the provincial election. The same affidavit says some records from that period were later found intact.
So no one seems to know what really is going on. And no one seems to know precisely what the policies are that govern the storage and disposal of government records. Which is what I was trying to find out this week. For the record, here are those who refused to discuss the matter or even respond to interview requests:
{Snip} ... See the list of people Gary called: Ben Stewart, Rosemarie Hayes, Sue Goldsmith, Lee Johnson, David Loukidelis ... and their reaction.
Don't miss reading Gary Mason's full column HERE.
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