When the NDP recently revealed the B.C. Liberals' plan to sway ethnic votes in key ridings, many wondered if the cynical plot line would be tied directly to Premier Christy Clark.
Now that John Dyble, the deputy minister to the premier, has completed his report on the whole ethnic vote mess, it appears that Clark may have escaped unscathed - at least in print.
While Dyble minces no words calling senior staffers and operatives out for doing Liberal partisan work on taxpayer-funded government time, Clark's fingerprints are missing. But it is cold comfort to those who have already lost what little faith they may have had in government accountability.
It appears that politicians are simply learning more tricks to hide political conversations and plotting on the taxpayers' dime.
It appears that every time there's an investigation, someone trying to hide something just comes up with another "work around."
It's a sad political reality that Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham confirmed last week: transparent government does not exist in B.C.
Denham's own investigation shows that the government answer of "no records" to FOI requests has increased from approximately 12 per cent in 2009 to 25 per cent in 2012.
The office with the largest staff and the fewest records? You guessed it: the premier's office, which had no records to share in 45 per cent of FOI requests in 2012.
To be clear, the government is breaking no law in communicating orally or deleting emails.
But as Denham has said, the governent has a duty to document an accurte record of government actions.
We hope that the next government of B.C. will take steps to reform FOI legislation so that information is required to be kept.
