Justice minister dismisses shredding of documents as an isolated incident

Alberta legislature visitor logs that were shredded in the months following the 2015 election have the Opposition demanding an investigation by the privacy commissioner.

Late last year, the Wildrose Party wanted to know who the NDP government had met with since it swept to power, so it filed a freedom of information request for visitor logs tracking who signs into the building for official meetings.

What came back were thousands of pages of blacked-out names, redacted because of apparent privacy concerns.

But there were four months of documents missing.

That kicked off an independent investigation, prepared for the justice department, which concluded the documents had probably been shredded.

Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said Wednesday it seems the missing documents were due to what she labelled “inappropriate” actions of a single person employed with the legislature’s sheriff ’s office at the time.

The problem wasn’t someone going rogue, she said, because “you can’t really go rogue off a direction that doesn’t exist.”

“The problem is, there was unclear or inconsistent direction over ... what should happen to visitor logs,” she said.

The response from her ministry was to craft and implement such a policy — that log books be retained for two years.

Those documents can be accessed if the person visiting is a public official, but the names of other individuals are redacted due

The problem is, there was unclear or inconsistent direction over ... what should happen to visitor logs.

to privacy concerns.

“There will usually be a lot of people that potentially visit ministers’ offices that don’t necessarily want their names out there,” she said, whether they ’re whistleblowers or seeing a minister about a private issue.

Ganley didn’t know what the policy was under the former Progressive Conservative administration, and PC caucus leader Ric McIver wasn’t sure, either.

Either way, Wildrose democracy and accountability critic Nathan Cooper said shredding documents is a clear violation of the transparency the NDP pledged to deliver to Albertans.

Cooper said the destruction of the records means nobody will ever know who met with the NDP in its first months of power.

He said the issue speaks to a larger trend of a lack of transparency from the NDP, as outlined by the privacy commissioner in recent reports.

Ganley countered that it was a one-off incident that the government has taken steps to remedy.