Letter to T-C re Leyne column this morning. #bcpoli

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Editor,

Re "NDP Eager to put Virk on Hot Seat", your columnist does journalism no favors when he minimizes the revelations brought forward by the NDP in the Legislature Monday April 20th.

As he notes, the NDP sought information from multiple sources within government, notably from a gentleman named Nick Facey who worked for Amrik Virk during the height of the scandal around Kwantlen College executive compensation. I dryly note Virk was forced to admit he had "forgotten" that he was involved in efforts to skirt the compensation rules when he was a board member at Kwantlen.

So the NDP asked for emails from Facey during that time. "No Records" was the response. But the emails did turn up, largely blacked out as cabinet advice, from the Minister's files. There are other examples from Hansard that day.

Leyne claims that the FOI issue doesn't move many people, and governments across the country , what, routinely lie to FOI requesters? I'm not sure I understood him. But if I were to assert that our Press Gallery is content to fill the newspaper pages with gossip from the golf course, rather than digging for factual information, and that the Press Gallery found this nonsense acceptable from gvernments, people would be mighty upset.

The Freedom of Information and Privacy Act protects our democratic institutions by forcing governments to inform us of what they are up to. It's a damn shame Leyne doesn't find a government routinely evading the act more appalling.

Sincerely
Merv Adey

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