You think you’re frustrated by the B.C. government’s lack of transparency, wilful destruction of important records and general balkiness when it comes to divulging information when asked?
You should know what I’ve gone through. Here’s the record of my horrifying ordeal in the search for truth:
Dear Gov’t: Please send me everything you’ve got lying around that’s interesting.
Looking for the really inside stuff, OK?
Thanks.
Les
Dear Applicant: The Premier’s Office received your request for access to records. We understand your request to be for: “Everything you’ve got lying around that’s interesting.”
The act allows 30 business days for public bodies to respond unless the nature of the request requires an extension, per Sec. 10. We will make every effort to respond. We will notify you as soon as possible.
The act also allows that we may charge a fee for certain limited costs of providing you with the requested information, such as retrieving and copying a large volume of records. Should this be the case, we will contact you at a later date with a fee estimate.
Dear Gov’t: OK, thanks. But when you’re inventing the fee, keep in mind I work for a newspaper, so we don’t have any money.
Dear Applicant: Your addendum to the request which stipulates “the really inside stuff” has necessitated an extension to the time limit. We keep the really inside stuff in a separate email folder. It’s kept up Dawson Creek way. Bob’s headed that way after spring breakup. If there’s room in the truck, he might bring some back with him. Or he might not. We’ll see. Have a wonderful British Columbia day.
Dear Gov’t: My perusal of the freedom of information law didn’t turn up any reference to buying more time based on the availability of room in Bob’s truck. And is it just me, or is there a sarcastic tone in your last note? Because I don’t think that’s allowed either.
Dear Applicant: Sarcasm? Us? We are diligently searching for records to divulge and following the law to the letter. By the way, we need more time. The Post-It note about your request fell off the office fridge during the foosball tournament and we forgot about it for a while.
Yours, in transparency.
Dear Gov’t: I don’t like to drop names, but I happen to know Elizabeth Denham’s email address. And if I happen to hit “forward,” I bet she’d be pissed to see how you’re treating my request. She’ll seize your hard drives, faster than you can say “culture of delete.”
Dear Applicant: Ooh, is the little baby going to run to the commissioner because he didn’t get his way? Go ahead. Do it. We have a special folder for all the mail we get from the commission. It’s called “spam.”
By the way, we need another extension. The message-tracking logs that had the mailbox metadata migrated to a new server and the backup configuration didn’t work. So we had to start over.
Dear Gov’t: Amrik Virk just said he’s made it “abundantly clear that the government is committed to openness and transparency.” And the commissioner said you have a duty to assist applicants in clarifying requests. So there.
Dear Applicant: Here’s a funny thing. We reconfigured the backup and got the unmigrated metadata back. But some guys were fighting over the keyboard and they accidentally deleted it again. Then the keyboard fell and it got deleted from the Deleted Items file. When they picked it up, the cursor was on the Recover Deleted Items folder, and it got deleted again.
Imagine that! An accidental triple-delete.
Still working on it.
Dear Gov’t: This is a monstrous abdication of your responsibility to follow the law. You’re keeping people in the dark and deleting stuff at will and withholding evidence just because you can. Remember Nixon’s 18-minute gap? Remember what happened to him? That’s what’s going to happen to you. When David Loukidelis is through with you guys, you’ll be singing like canaries and begging me to take stuff off your hands.
Dear Applicant: Sorry for the delay. We have all the “inside stuff” compiled and we have to say, it’s quite a read. But it’s all transitory. So go away and leave us alone.
