B.C. premier Christy Clark has essentially stopped using email, a response to a freedom-of-information (FOI) request suggests. Either that or she has been sending emails and then deleting them.
If the latter is true, it would contradict an order Clark gave in response to a scathing report on government record-keeping that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C. (OIPC) released on October 22.
“I’ve told everyone at the political level, ministers, political staff, even if it’s clearly a transitory document that you are required by law to delete—I want you to keep it,” Clarksaid on October 23.
Yet an FOI request for all emails Clark sent from October 19 to 22 and from October 26 to 29 turned up just one document.
“Can you send me a copy of that note you typed us for me recently and stuck in my book?” the sender wrote to communications coordinator Chelsea Dolan. (The sender’s name is redacted but it can be assumed it was Clark, given the parameters of the FOI request.)
The Straightpreviously reported that a request for Clark’s emails from a two-week period in December 2014 produced no records.
The premier’s office did not grant an interview.
The request for Clark’s October correspondence was filed by the NDP. David Eby, New Democrat MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, told the Straight the lack of records the request produced is noteworthy because it shows that Clark’s email habits did not change despite her instructing staff to retain their communications.
“It is hard for me to imagine how you could be the premier and have one email over two weeks,” Eby said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me and strongly suggests she is either deleting her own emails or she is not using email to avoid creating records that could be FOI’d.”
The OIPC’s October 22 report details how employees in the premier’s office plus staff at two ministries had “triple deleted” emails, taking extra steps to expunge records from computers. In addition, the OIPC has accused one employee with the Ministry of Transportation of giving false testimony about the practice while he was under oath. That case has been forwarded to the RCMP.
Clark has repeatedly claimed that email is not her preferred means of communication and said she conducts government business face to face.
The premier tapped former B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis to instruct the government on how it should implement recommendations outlined in the OIPC’s October 22 report. As the Straight went to press, Loukidelis was scheduled to present his findings on December 16. (Update: Loukidelis’s report can be found here.)
A review and dismissal of a complaint against the Vancouver police filed by Audrey Siegl includes many pages that are almost entirely redacted. Travis Lupick photo.
A prominent First Nations activist is appealing a decision by the Vancouver Police Department’s professional standards section (PSS) to dismiss a complaint she filed claiming abuse of authority and oppressive conduct toward a member of the public.
A January 2015 complaint reviewed by B.C.’s privacy commissioner reveals chief of staff for the City of Vancouver Mike Magee deleted emails on a weekly basis. Matt Burrows photo.
The Mayor of Vancouver’s right-hand man has been regularly deleting emails, a practice that has engulfed the provincial government in a widening scandal related to how civil servants destroy information in ways that may interfere with the public’s access to information.
That city-hall revelation was included in a complaint review by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC) pertaining to Mike Magee, chief of staff for the City of Vancouver.
“The City informed me that its IT department searched Mr. Magee’s City email account for all emails fitting the criteria set out in your request, which includes all emails to, from and CC,” it reads. “Mr. Magee has advised that he saves very few of his emails and deletes emails on a weekly basis.”
The OIPC’s decision is dated January 28, 2015, but was not made public until freelance journalist Bob Mackin published it online on November 10. It pertains to a complaint he filed with the OIPC alleging the city failed to meet its obligations under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The OIPC ruled in the city’s favour and dismissed Mackin’s complaint.
Magee was not made available for an interview. Deputy city manager Sadhu Johnstontold the Straight there are rules that ensure staff comply with record-keeping requirements. He said each staff member is responsible for their own email account, but he argued that storage constraints mean staff can’t retain every digital record they send or receive.
“We do expect people to delete emails from their accounts,” he said. “Most of our staff get hundreds of emails per day and, as the OIPC says, you have to determine whether the record is transitory or permanent. And if it’s permanent, you do need to store it on our document storage system.”
Mackin told the Straight he published the OIPC review that mentioned Magee’s emails because of attention paid to similar practices in an October 22 OIPC report that described how employees in the premier’s office and two ministries regularly deleted emails from their accounts. The OIPC expressed concern for a practice known as “triple deleting”, where civil servants took extra steps to make deleted records difficult to recover.
Johnston said he was “not aware of people doing that” at City Hall.
“I wouldn’t call it triple deleting,” he added. “But, yes, you can delete emails from your inbox that are transitory.”
The same day Mackin published his concerns, the OIPC announced it had begun a review of Vancouver’s access to information practices. OIPC spokesperson Cara McGregor told the Straight it was not initiated in response to a specific complaint. She said it was part of an ongoing “audit and compliance program” started in 2014.
At the same time, a related OIPC media release describes Vancouver as “among public bodies with the highest number of complaints and access to information appeals received by this Office”.
A freedom-of-information request filed by the NDP found more than 800 “message tracking logs” for emails related to an account operated by Tobie Myers, chief of staff to B.C. Minister Rich Coleman, yet a separate request for the contents of some of those emails resulted in the government producing just three messages.
The B.C. New Democrats say they are collecting a growing body of evidence that proves a Liberal government practice of deleting emails was “systemic” and explicitly for the purpose of preventing the release of information to the public.
In a telephone interview, David Eby, MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, said the NDP will forward the documents it has collected to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. (OIPC) and that body can then decide if a formal investigation is warranted.
The Opposition member’s claims come on the heels of an October 22 OIPC report that details how employees in the premier’s office, plus staff at two ministries, had “triple deleted” emails, taking extra steps to expunge records from computers. The results of that investigation implicate the premier’s deputy chief of staff, Michele Cadario. In addition, the OIPC has accused one government employee, George Gretes, of giving false testimony about the practice while he was under oath. That case has been forwarded to the RCMP.
“The practice we observed was the routine emptying of the Recover Deleted Items folder to ensure that emails were permanently deleted from an employee’s system,” the OIPC report reads. “This is not the intention of the Recover Deleted Items folder and for employees managing their mail account it serves no legitimate purpose.”
The file the NDP is building already includes information on a number of additional email addresses that were not the subject of that investigation, Eby said, one of those being an account that belongs to the premier herself.
Eby explained the NDP filed a freedom-of-information request that asked for all correspondence to and from Premier Christy Clark’s public and private email addresses for a two-week period in December 2014 (coinciding with an announcement about the Site C dam). That request resulted in the government stating it could find no records meeting the criteria of the request.
A subsequent freedom-of-information request asked for the “message tracking logs” for the same account and same period, Eby continued. The government’s response to that request, however, stated that there were more than 150 emails sent from the premier’s public account during that time frame.
Eby said the NDP has similar evidence of missing emails for accounts controlled by Tobie Myers, chief of staff to Rich Coleman—who oversees several ministry portfolios, including liquefied natural gas—as well as the email account of John Dyble, deputy minister to the premier. (B.C. NDP leader John Horgan provided more information related to the case of Myers in an October 26 blog post. An October 27 report by the Vancouver Sun adds details to accusations regarding Dyble.)
Eby maintained that those discrepancies—a number of which were reviewed by the Straight—suggest that hundreds of emails pertinent to government business were deleted from the premier’s account as well as the accounts of top government officials.
Meanwhile, freelance journalist Bob Mackin has stated publicly he may have proof that emails were deleted from accounts belonging to Sam Oliphant and Maclean Kay, both of whom work in the premier’s office as media relations officers.
The premier’s office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Clark has said her government is cooperating with the OIPC and has emphasized that she has ordered all government employees to refrain from deleting emails.
“Raising the minimum wage allows B.C. to keep pace with minimum wages in the rest of Canada while maintaining our competitiveness,” said B.C. Minister of Labour Shirley Bond (right) at a press conference in March 2015. Government of British Columbia photo.
British Columbia’s new minimum wage of $10.45 an hour is the second-lowest in all of Canada, according to the federal government’s Labour Program. When New Brunswick implements a promised increase in 2017, B.C.’s rate will rank dead last among Canada’s 13 provinces and territories.
And that’s where it is going to stay. Each jurisdictions’ minimum wage is tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or a similar economic indicator. So even though B.C.’s wage is scheduled to rise each September, it will remain low compared to all other provinces because rates there will rise the same way.
It is unlikely this situation was an intentional outcome of the provincial government.
After reviewing hundreds of pages of government documents related to changes to B.C.’s minimum wage implemented on September 15, the Straight can report it was most likely an accident, a mistake that the government is now refusing to acknowledge or redress.
Good intentions
Upon assuming office in 2011, B.C. Premier Christy Clark personally took an interest in the minimum wage. After her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, left it at $8 an hour for a decade, Clark promised to raise it from the gutter.
“We’re not going to be number one in the country by any stretch,” Clark said on CKNW radio on March 17, 2011. “But we’re going to be catching up. We won’t be at the bottom anymore.”
Stephanie Cadeiux, B.C. minister of labour at the time, repeated that pledge in the legislature on May 9, 2011: “In fact, it is not going to be the lowest in Canada,” she said. “When it reaches $10.25 next year, we will be tied for the second-highest in Canada, actually.”
The good intent expressed in those public remarks is supported by cabinet submissions and briefing papers the Straight obtained through freedom of information legislation.
In those documents, bureaucrats repeatedly describe B.C.’s minimum wage as among the country’s lowest, express concern for that fact, and offer solutions to improve the state of B.C.’s lowest earners.
So how did B.C.’s new minimum wage end up near the bottom in the country?
Sliding back to near last place
Although some of the released documents are heavily redacted, those files make clear there was a great deal of time and thought put into the 20-cent increase to $10.45 and the decision to tie the new wage to the CPI.
There were meetings and many emails on the matter. Civil servants looked at different minimum rates across the country, gathered information on other provinces’ plans for the future, and projected how B.C.’s minimum wage would compare to those plans.
“In 2014, every province other than B.C. raised its minimum wage at least once,” reads a February 2015 cabinet submission marked confidential. “Several provinces have scheduled increases for 2015. Since May 1, 2012, B.C. has slid from 3rd (behind only Yukon and Nunavut) to 9th among all Canadian jurisdictions as of January 1, 2015. Based on current commitments in other jurisdictions, B.C. will likely be last among Canadian jurisdictions if there is no increase by October 2015.”
The month after that cabinet submission was received by the premier’s office, the government announced its new rate of $10.45, stating that this latest increase would place B.C. at about the middle of the pack.
Which it did, but only for 15 days from the time it was enacted.
The documents include specific comparisons to other jurisdictions’ plans to raise their minimum wages, but not to increases scheduled for later than mid-2015.
On October 1, Alberta went to $11.20, Manitoba to $11, Saskatchewan to $10.50, Ontario to $11.25, and Newfoundland and Labrador to $10.50. Those changes dropped B.C. back to second-to-last place in the country.
A predictable outcome
Repeated interview requests sent to the premier’s office and the B.C. Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training in September and October were either refused or ignored. When the Straight asked in writing if the government was aware that $10.45 ranked near the bottom of the country, Ministry of Jobs spokesperson Gabrielle Price supplied statements that ignored the question. She also refused to say whether or not the government would be willing to re-examine the issue.
Shane Simpson is B.C.’s opposition critic for economic development, jobs, labour, and skills and NDP MLA for Vancouver-Hastings. In a telephone interview, he recounted taking similar questions to his government counterpart, Shirley Bond.
“I talked to the Minister of Jobs in the estimates process in the spring about this, and I asked whether there were any plans or intentions to make any other adjustments to the minimum wage over and above the CPI,” Simpson recounted. “She said, ‘No’. She said, ‘We’re pretty comfortable with where we are and we are going to stay here.’ ”
If this situation was the result of a mistake, the documents suggest the province will now resist returning to the matter to correct it.
In several places in the released papers, it is stated that pegging B.C.’s minimum wage to the CPI would help prevent a build-up of discontent among low-income earners that, history had shown, would eventually force the government to implement a dramatic wage increase that would upset business owners.
“Experience indicates that when the minimum wage is fixed for long stretches of time, political pressure eventually builds to enact big increases—and it is these, rather than small periodic increases, which cause the most serious disruptions for the business sectors that rely on relatively low-paid employees to staff their facilities and run their operations,” reads a February 2015 cabinet submission.
Calls for a correction
B.C. Federation of Labour president Irene Lanzinger told the Straight her organization predicted that the 20-cent increase would not be enough relative to other jurisdictions. She asked, therefore, why bureaucrats in the B.C. Ministry of Jobs were not able to do the same.
After reviewing a number of the documents obtained by the Straight, Lanzinger said her staff came to the same conclusion: that the provincial government did compare B.C.’s new minimum wage to that of other provinces, and also that it looked at how those jurisdictions planned on increasing their rates in the near future. But what they didn’t do is look far enough down the road.
“The quote in the documents is, ‘If we don’t do something by October 2015, we will be last,’ ” she said. “So they did something by October 2015. But what they did was just so inadequate and so minimal.”
Lanzinger encouraged the government to re-examine the province’s new minimum wage and consider another raise that will lift B.C. from the bottom in the country.
“She [Clark] specifically said we weren’t going to be at the bottom, that we were going to put things in place to make sure that we didn’t end up at the bottom,” she said. “And here we are at the bottom.”
