Liberals Ask Information Commissioner to Investigate Prime Minister’s Office

December 3, 2013

OTTAWA– The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Ralph Goodale, sent the following letter today to Canada’s Information Commissioner re-emphasizing his outstanding request for a full and urgent investigation into how critical information about the Conservatives’ ethics scandal has been denied, lost and mishandled by the Prime Minister’s Office and by the Privy Council Office:

Ms. Suzanne Legault
Information Commissioner of Canada
Place de Ville, Tower B
112 Kent Street, 7th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1H3

Dear Commissioner Legault:

Further to my letter of complaint, dated November 17, 2013, I write to ask you to give my concerns your utmost attention at the earliest possible date.

The urgency and importance of questions about access to information in relation to the “Wright/Duffy” ethics scandal have only increased since the date of my letter. They cry out for serious attention by those charged with protecting the integrity, accessibility, transparency and accountability of the Government of Canada.

For example, in addition to the material provided in my complaint, I now note that the RCMP have put into the public domain a lengthy “Information to Obtain” document which provides numerous examples of engagement on this file by the Privy Council Office. A complete copy of that police document is attached.

Furthermore, the PCO has just now announced that a record of the emails of former Prime Minister’s Office lawyer, Benjamin Perrin, does in fact exist – contrary to previous misinformation provided by this department. According to the attached letter, PCO twice advised that “Mr. Perrin’s emails had been deleted,” yet “on November 29, 2013 [PCO] found that Mr. Perrin’s emails had in fact been retained due to a litigation hold in an unrelated matter.”

Given the absolute relevance of the Perrin documentation and the spotty record of PCO in handling this hugely important and highly sensitive file, a full investigation by your office into the capacity of PCO to maintain and retrieve records free from political interference is, in my view, crucial.

This painful matter has extracted a heavy toll in terms of the government’s credibility. Canadians’ trust is hanging by a thread. I hope you can play a useful role in re-establishing the public’s respect for the system by which we are governed.

Yours sincerely,

Honourable Ralph Goodale, P.C., M.P.

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Background:

You may view Mr. Goodale’s previous letter regarding the PMO Ethics Scandal here.