Liberals just hate email

Just how long have Liberal insiders been trying to hide information from the public. It goes back to 2003 when then Deputy Minister to Premier Gordon Campbell said that he deleted emails so the media fishing expeditions would not produce anything.

In 2005 Sean Holman at PublicEye found this spicy email sent to Vancouver Island Health Authority communications folks. Seems they are concerned with the BC Opposition's use of Freedom of Information to request potentially embarrassing or incriminating emails. Oddly enough the email asking people not to put sensitive material in an email was leaked! I guess the Liberals were right to be worried...

"...Even before the election, the volume of FOI requests at the Ministry from the opposition were increasing - and they were sometimes asking for materials from specific individuals (ie communications staff). This trend will likely continue now. The reminder is for us to use the phone a lot more than we have been. And no briefing notes on locally changed climates, please...If you don't want it on the front page of the TC, don't put it in E mail... ~ Suzanne Germain, Media & Issues Advisor Vancouver Island Health Authority (email leaked to www.publiceyeonline.com)

This from the political party that promised to be the most open and accountable government in Canada. Since then we have learned of the extent they will go in order to prevent being open and accountable.

Recently we learned that the Campbell government was ordered by BC Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett to turn over email which likely related to the scandal plagued BC Rail sale to CN Rail. The emails of Premier Gordon Campbell, most cabinet ministers and political staff are likely relevant to the defence in the Basi-Virk case and she ordered they be disclosed to the defence.

That has turned out to be a silly order by Madame Justice Bennett. See the emails are missing. Thats what we heard in July of this year. Then in Court in August, Madame Justice Bennett was told that they had found emails from 2004. The ones missing are from 2002 and 2003.

They were written over by mistake. It seems they had the emails a little while ago but have since lost them when a staff person inadvertently deleted them all during the election.

I'm sure it was a little mistake, not meaning any harm, heck anyone could do it, right Mr. Dobbell?