Some provincial Liberal political aides "double-deleted" emails in an attempt to keep their communications confidential, Public Eye has exclusively learned.
The aides believed "double-deleting" would prevent their emails from being saved by the government's back-up tapes, according to sources familiar with the practice.
Here's how it worked: the aides would delete message from their Outlook inbox and then empty the program's deleted messages folder.
The sources couldn't say how widespread the "double-deleting" was or whether that practices has continued.
But the sources, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the government, stressed aides were never instructed to "double-delete" their emails.
Nevertheless, it's one more reason to question just how committed the Liberals have been to running the most open and accountable government in Canada - a promise they made in the 2001 election platform.
Among the others: six years ago, the premier's then deputy minister admitted to deleting most of his emails to avoid them being caught by media fishing expeditions.
Recently, the government also acknowledged it had overwritten backup tapes that contained high-level emails dating from 2003 and prior.
Legislature raid trial defence lawyers had requested those and other emails.
But the court was told those tapes were overwritten in the course of standard government practice.
A government spokesperson declined to say whether double-deleting would actually have prevented emails from being backed-up because it's "a matter that is before the courts and it would be inappropriate to comment at this time."
Mad men?
When the government announced it wanted to build taller wood-frame buildings, it released a report that supposedly analyzed their seismic and fire safety issues.
But even supporters of that controversial initiative thought the report read more like a sales pitch than a scientific paper, according to records exclusively obtained by Public Eye.
In an email sent to government in July 3, 2008, an industry advisor with a non-profit wood research institute described the report as a "nicely done literature review."
But she cautioned it was "quite 'friendly' to wood, which may cause a negative reaction by steel and concrete interest groups, who stand to lose if this code change is implemented."
And that's exactly what happened.
In a letter dated 14 days later, the Canadian Steel Construction Council slammed the report for "being written in a marketing style format."
For example, "the author makes a range of statements using phrases like 'mounting evidence' or 'built faster' and words like 'exceed' to convince the reader that it is technically feasible to go higher with wood frame construction."
But, more seriously, the council warned the report lacked "objectivity and credible assessment of the risks involved" in building five and six-storey wood-frames.
The Cement Association of Canada shared those concerns.
It questioned the credibility of a source repeatedly cited in the report.
"The article of [the source] that is extensively cited in the paper is associated with a rather obscure organization (the International Wood Committee of the International Centre on Monuments and Sites) that doesn't seem focused on building codes, or multi-storey construction."
Moreover, according to the association, "the lack of reference to the strength and weaknesses of other construction materials relative to wood leaves an unfortunate impression of bias in the paper."
But despite those concerns - as well as opposition from fire fighting officials - the Campbell administration went ahead and allowed construction of taller wood-frames earlier this year.
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye (publiceyeonline.com). He can be reached at [email protected].
