TORONTO – Top staff in former premier Dalton McGuinty’s office broke the law by deleting all e-mails related to the cancellation of gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, Ontario’s privacy commissioner said Wednesday.
Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said the indiscriminate deletion of all e-mails sent and received by McGuinty’s former Chief of Staff, Chris Morley, violated the Archives and Recordkeeping Act.
Cavoukian told 680News she was “disturbed” by her findings and couldn’t believe that not a single e-mail was retained.
“In order to be open and transparent you have to retain the information. You can’t just delete them in some irresponsible manner and think it’s no big deal; it’s a big deal — this is the underpinning of freedom and liberty,” Cavoukian said.
“Citizens have a right of access to this information. How can they review what you’re doing and the decisions you make if you delete everything? It’s simply not possible,” she added.
Cavoukian also found as recently as January 2013 staff in the former premier’s office tried to find out how to permanently delete e-mails and other electronic documents.
The privacy commissioner concluded the e-mail practices of McGuinty’s office violated their legal obligations.
However, Cavoukian said she cannot state with certainty that there was inappropriate deletion of e-mails as part of the transition to the Kathleen Wynne’s administration to avoid transparency and accountability.
The opposition parties contend the Liberals deleted the e-mails to help cover up the total cost of cancelling the gas plants, which has now ballooned to $585-million.
The NDP had complained to Cavoukian after Freedom of Information requests for gas plant documents discovered there were no e-mails for Morley, McGuinty’s former principal secretary Jamison Steeve or former deputy policy director Sean Mullin.
In a release, Government House Leader John Milloy said he’s taking “its obligations seriously and we are committed to being open, accountable, and transparent.”
“We are closely examining her findings and recommendations. Our government is committed to addressing the issues raised by the commissioner to ensure that situations as referred to in her report do not happen again,” Milloy added.
Opposition reaction
Meanwhile, it was a feisty session at Queen’s Park as the Official Opposition attacked the minority Liberal government over the deleted e-mails.
Conservative MPP John Yakabuski demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne call an election.
“The people of Ontario no longer have confidence in you. Will you simply admit that you are no longer fit to govern this province as you have lied to the people of Ontario,” Yakabuski said.
Premier Wynne insisted the e-mail deletion won’t happen again.
“The practices that will be in place, that have been in place since we came into this role Mr. Speaker have been in full compliance with the rules,” Wynne said.
