Watchdog barks at NDP over emails

Democracy Watch pushes for clear regulations on what can be deleted

A democracy watchdog has slammed the Alberta government over 800,000 emails deleted by political staffers and managers.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, called it a “clear abuse” of the power public bodies have to destroy records, due to the sheer volume of deleted emails and who erased them.

The issue stems from a series of two 2016 freedom of information requests made by the official Opposition.

What they discovered were sparse inboxes and sent email folders belonging to top staffers in Premier Rachel Notley’s office, internal ministry programs encouraging staff to reduce the number of emails in their system, and the disappearance of 800,000 emails.

Alberta’s privacy commissioner launched an investigation into the deleted emails last month.

Under access to information laws, governments don’t have to retain transitory documents. However, the very definition of what is or isn’t transitory is decided by government officials.

In Alberta, records management regulations give the Service Alberta minister the power to establish all policies around record management, including how records are controlled, organized, secured and destroyed.

A records management committee — comprised of officials nominated from a handful of ministries and the provincial archives, and anyone else the minister deems appropriate — then reviews how policies are being implemented across government.

All Government of Alberta employees go through mandatory access to information training.

The materials they use are the only place you’ll find the definition of a transitory document. It’s not mentioned anywhere in regulations or legislation.

Conacher has a problem with that.

“The public needs to see the record of a government decisionmaking process in order to judge whether decisions were made for the right reasons and following all the laws of the province,” he said.

United Conservative MLA Nathan Cooper, who originally raised the red flag to the commissioner, says regulations guiding government document destruction need to be updated to include the definition of “transitory.”

In an emailed statement, Service Alberta Minister Stephanie McLean said her government takes access to information seriously.

“While there’s more work to do, we’re proud to be proactively disclosing more information with Albertans than ever before and steadily improving turnaround times for freedom of information requests,” McLean said.

The government’s definition of transitory documents is publicly available, but, like Conacher, Cooper worries about the amount of power in the minister’s hands and that of the committee.

He said the fact the committee operates with very little public scrutiny is part of the problem.

“These rules can be doctored or changed without anyone really knowing,” Cooper said.

“This is the exact sort of thing the NDP used to rally against. They’ve had over two years to make appropriate changes and have done absolutely nothing.”