The accusations of a former provincial government employee that political appointees routinely destroy emails to keep them from the public eye are as yet unproven, but neither can they be easily dismissed. The B.C. Liberal government doesn鈥檛 have a sterling record of openness and transparency.
The situation underscores the uneasy balance between conducting government business openly and maintaining confidentiality when necessary, but politicians and bureaucrats seem too quick to favour secrecy.
Tim Duncan, who worked as an executive assistant to Transportation Minister Todd Stone, says he was told to destroy emails following a freedom-of-information request last year. When he hesitated, a more senior official erased them, he says.
Duncan has written to privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham, saying this wasn鈥檛 an isolated incident, that such actions are systemic within the government. He also gave the NDP a copy of his letter. Denham says she has launched an investigation.
The government says the accusations come from a disgruntled former employee who was fired. That鈥檚 certainly possible, given that Duncan was a little hazy on whether he quit or was dismissed, but the issue is not Duncan鈥檚 motives, but the truth.
To Stone鈥檚 credit, Duncan鈥檚 accusation have not been shrugged off. The senior official in question has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of Denham鈥檚 investigation, and Stone says he expects his staff 鈥渢o adhere 100 per cent to the requirements of the applicable legislation.鈥�
In 2013, Denham chastised the B.C. Liberal government for its failure to keep records, noting that the government wasn鈥檛 documenting some key decisions, allowing it to avoid public scrutiny under FOI laws. She said that while the Liberals were complying with FOI laws, they had also shown evidence of 鈥減ractising 鈥榦ral鈥� government.鈥�
鈥淲ithout a duty to document, government can effectively avoid disclosure and public scrutiny as to the basis and reasons for its actions,鈥� Denham wrote in her report.
鈥淭he lack of documentation undermines the ability of citizens, journalists and the public to understand the basis for government鈥檚 actions on any particular matter.鈥�
The NDP has brought to light cases where the Liberals have claimed no records existed on important issues, only to have documents turn up elsewhere.
The most notorious lack of a paper trail is associated with the puzzling firings of several Health Ministry employees in 2012. Despite suggesting initially that serious wrongdoing had occurred, the government backed away from such accusations.
Apologies and reinstatement of some of the employees followed. Independent lawyer Marcia McNeil, appointed to investigate the firings, found a lot of finger-pointing but no documentation as to who fired the employees and why.
Premier Christy Clark said this week that many documents are transitory, which means they can be destroyed. That makes sense 鈥� not everything that elected officials and political staff say to each other, verbally and in emails, is worth keeping. People need to be free to think out loud without fear of being skewered later for, say, ideas that were discussed and discarded. Not every exploratory conversation needs to become a matter of public record if it is not part of the decision-making.
But secrecy should be the exception, not the rule. When a government appears to be hiding something, the public often assumes the worst. It is sometimes awkward when certain conversations and correspondence come to light, but as disgraced U.S. president Richard Nixon learned in the 1970s, the coverup can have more serious consequences than the original transgression.
The default should be a culture of openness, not secrecy. It should be standard procedure that information and records will be available to the public unless sound reasons 鈥� not political considerations 鈥� dictate otherwise.
