publc affairs bureau politicization 6

7/29/2019 Publc Affairs Bureau Politicization 6

1/4

Klein's machine undermined civil service; It's

time to demand of our new premier a newpolitical cultureEdmonton JournalThu Jun 28 2007Page: B1 / FRONTSection: CityplusByline: Paula SimonsColumn: Paula SimonsSource: The Edmonton Journal

Three years ago this month, two Journal reporters, Charles Rusnell andKaren Kleiss, filed a "Freedom of Information" request with AlbertaInfrastructure. They asked to see copies of the flight logs detailing the useof government planes by Premier Ralph Klein and his cabinet ministers.

The information wasn't supposed to be confidential. Indeed, a monthbefore The Journal filed its application, Klein had actually invited the pressto go through the logs. But then the government abruptly cut off access tothe documents -- so abruptly, they actually ejected my colleague GrahamThomson from the City Centre airport hangar while he was in the middle of

going through the log books. Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, who'd also arrivedto see the logs, wasn't even allowed in the door.

It took civil servants four months to "prepare" the logs for release, inresponse to the Journal application.

But by October 22, 2004, the logs were indisputably ready to go. By law,the bureaucrats at Alberta Infrastructure were required to turn them over tothe paper no later than October 26.

That's not what happened. On Oct. 27, Klein called an election. Andsomeone, somewhere, decided it would be a very bad plan to embarrassthe premier and his party in the midst of a provincial election campaign byreleasing potentially damning information about the wasteful and frivoloususe of government airplanes. The department waited until the election wasover, then released the data.

This week, an access to information and privacy commission adjudicator


2/4

officially ruled the department purposely manipulated the timing of therelease of the documents for political reasons. In other words, for partisanpurposes, the department stalled the release of the fight logs until after thevote.

Perhaps you're not shocked.

Perhaps, three years on, you're not even interested. Hey, the governmentdid release the flight logs. It was only smart tactics to keep such explosiveinformation hidden until after the election -- right?

And therein lies the problem.

In this province, we've so blurred the line between the ProgressiveConservative Party and "the government," we can't even see it anymore.

In a parliamentary democracy, our civil servants aren't supposed to beparty apparatchiks. They're supposed to be apolitical, neutral publicservants. They're supposed to work for us, the taxpayers, not for the PCparty.

It wasn't up to the deputy minister or the Public Affairs Bureau to choosethe right strategic time to release this information. The deadlines torespond to an information request are laid out in legislation.

The staffers at the Infrastructure Department were legally required to turnthose flight logs over to The Journal. It was not their responsibility to

suppress the documents to protect Tories up for re-election.

But it gets worse. The Journal filed a complaint with the freedom ofinformation commissioner alleging that the government had delayed therelease of the flight log records until after the election for political reasons.During the public hearing that followed, the government entered an internale-mail into evidence that it said proved it intended to release thedocuments before election day but couldn't because of delays inprocessing the large volume of records.

However, The Journal had obtained a copy of the same e-mail throughanother freedom of information request. When the two copies werecompared, there was a discrepancy.

The original read that all records "MUST be released on or before Nov.25th." Someone tampered with the e-mail, to create the impression that thee-mail had actually read "on or after Nov. 25th."


3/4

Someone within the department attempted to trick or deceive a quasi-judicial body by falsifying vital evidence. An RCMP criminal investigationinto the matter is underway.

Did public servants willingly and willfully hide compromising data in the

weeks leading up to the election, in order to protect Klein and his cabinet?Or did they bow to pressure from their political bosses and suppress theinformation in order to protect their careers? And who was it who tried todeceive an adjudicator by entering a forged document into evidence at alegal hearing?

"I think most government employees who process Freedom of Informationrequests try to live up to the spirit of the act," says Rusnell, who has beenfighting this fight for three years. "But I think they are directed by theirpolitical masters to stall and delay the release of public records. What thisgovernment has forgotten is that these documents belong to the public, notthe government."

In one of the e-mails unearthed in The Journal's investigation, theInfrastructure department's FOIP co-ordinators caution one another to"resist any suggestion from the 3rd floor" to delay releasing the documents.The "3rd floor" refers to the offices that housed the department'scommunications director and to some of the deputy minister's staff. Theimage of besieged civil servants, struggling against political pressure fromtheir bosses and fighting a losing battle to uphold the law, is chilling.

To his credit, Ed Stelmach has promised his government will post all itsflight logs online, for us all to read. That's a great improvement. But itdoesn't address the larger problem. For 10 years, the Klein governmentundermined the independence and integrity of our civil service, pressuringcareer public servants to become political partisans, or hiring PC partyloyalists to public service positions. And for 10 years, Alberta voters let ithappen. It's time to demand of our new premier a new political culture --one where public servants serve the public interest, not the will of the Toryparty machine.

[email protected]


4/4

publc affairs bureau politicization 6

Documents