{"id":20558,"date":"2013-06-06T08:40:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T13:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=20558"},"modified":"2013-06-06T08:40:20","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T13:40:20","slug":"despite-breaking-the-archives-and-recordkeeping-act-and-undermining-freedom-of-information-legislation-the-scofflaws-will-not-face-penalties-because-there-are-none","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/06\/06\/despite-breaking-the-archives-and-recordkeeping-act-and-undermining-freedom-of-information-legislation-the-scofflaws-will-not-face-penalties-because-there-are-none\/","title":{"rendered":"“[D]espite breaking the Archives and Recordkeeping Act and ‘undermining’ freedom-of-information legislation, the scofflaws will not face penalties because there are none”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s mighty handy to have thoughtfully passed a law against deleting official records — that includes no penalties whatsoever<\/em><\/a> — just before you start breaking that law with abandon:<\/p>\n

Top Liberal staffers \u2014 even in former premier Dalton McGuinty\u2019s office \u2014 illegally deleted emails tied to the $585-million gas plant scandal, a parliamentary watchdog has found.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear they didn\u2019t want anything left behind in terms of a record on these issues,\u201d Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Her findings came in a scathing 35-page report prompted by NDP complaints that key Liberal political staff have no records on the controversial closures of plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election.<\/p>\n

However, despite breaking the Archives and Recordkeeping Act and \u201cundermining\u201d freedom-of-information legislation, the scofflaws will not face penalties because there are none, said Cavoukian.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the problem,\u201d she said, noting the inadequate legislation was passed by the McGuinty Liberals. \u201cIt\u2019s untenable. It has to have teeth so people just don\u2019t engage in indiscriminate practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney General John Gerretsen said the government would consider changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny law, in order to be effective, there have to be some sort of penalty provisions,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll take a look.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I were a betting man, I’d say that the chances of this “look” producing anything useful would be less than 1 in 10. If this were a private firm or an individual accused of deleting records that the government had an interest in seeing, I rather suspect they’d creatively find something in the existing body of law to use as a bludgeon. It’s charming that they didn’t think to include any penalties if the culprit was a government employee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s mighty handy to have thoughtfully passed a law against deleting official records — that includes no penalties whatsoever — just before you start breaking that law with abandon: Top Liberal staffers \u2014 even in former premier Dalton McGuinty\u2019s office \u2014 illegally deleted emails tied to the $585-million gas plant scandal, a parliamentary watchdog has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,84,9],"tags":[584,497,908,87,413],"class_list":["post-20558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-cancon","category-government","category-law","tag-daltonmcguinty","tag-electricity","tag-liberalparty","tag-ontario","tag-scandal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5lA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20559,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558\/revisions\/20559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}