As Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said: The medium is the message.
So what happens when you delete the medium?
Because that’s what Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has concluded happened when a provincial governments staffer “triple deleted” a series of emails upon receiving a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request related to B.C.’s “Highway of Tears.”
Angering as it is to learn about civil servants illegally withholding information and lying to investigators about it, we grimly point out that this is a symptom of a larger problem. Attempting to skirt accountability is nothing in politics, but in the last decade, it seems to have been elevated to an art form.
Rather than take questions, our leaders issue carefully vetted “messaging.” Rather than share information with the public, they horde it out of fear it may come back to haunt them in a scandal.
Or worse, they don’t record information or they use private emails to communicate to hide their tracks. We saw this with the Quick Wins scandal in 2013.
This top-down, paranoid directive to constantly be in control of the message is a symptom of a government that’s far more interested in clinging to power than it is governing.
And unfortunately it’s become the norm at all levels of government.
Green MLA Andrew Weaver has put forward some thoughtful suggestions including bringing in technology to ensure politicians and their staff are unable to delete emails. We agree.
But changing the technology is one thing. Changing the culture of government is a much bigger challenge.
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