Cabinet ministers, government officials and senior RCMP figures applied "a lot of pressure" on RCMP agents to accelerate the destruction of long-gun registry records, despite active access to information requests and written assurances from the public safety minister that records would be kept, investigators working for the information commissioner allege in court documents.

When Parliament passed a law to end the long-gun registry in April 2012, there was still at least one ongoing, unresolved request for information. The documents allege that, in its haste, the RCMP contravened access laws by destroying records related to that request.

Canada's information watchdog Suzanne Legault found that the RCMP destroyed the documents "with the knowledge that these records were subject to the right of access guaranteed by subsection 4 of the Access to Information Act" — an illegal move, according to an affidavit sworn by investigator Neil O'Brien on June 3 and obtained by CBC News.

The affidavit is part of a preservation order Legault filed in Federal Court on June 3 in an effort to keep the government from destroying more contested gun registry data.

Just for the record, [the] minister's office is putting a lot of pressure on me to destroy the records sooner. - Pierre Perron, the assistant commissioner to the director general of the RCMP's Canadian firearms program

In May, the government made an unprecedented move to retroactively exempt the long-gun registry from Access to Information Act and Privacy Act requests, back to 2011. The measure is included in the government's omnibus budget Bill C-59.

That move raised questions about whether the government really deleted all records in the long-gun registry outside of Quebec, as it said it had done. The Quebec records were kept while they were subject to a court challenge.

The government's move to retroactively exempt records from access laws also sets the stage for a charter challenge. The information commissioner's office says in the court documents that as soon as Bill C-59 comes into force, it will argue the measures infringe on Canadians' freedom of expression, including the right of access to government documents and the right to gather information relating to government institutions such as the RCMP.

Urgency behind the scenes

The affidavit outlines a lengthy probe into how the government went about deleting the data and handled requests for information.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is set to challenge the federal government on the constitutionality of preventing access laws from retroactively reaching long-gun registry data dating back to 2011. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) After Parliament passed the law to end the registry, Legault warned in a letter in April 2012 to then public safety minister Vic Toews that records pertaining to information requests "cannot be destroyed until a response has been provided."

The affidavit reveals that at about the same time Toews was reassuring Legault the RCMP would abide by the act and keep records pertaining to outstanding requests, there was an urgency behind the scenes to erase all registry data.

"Just for the record, [the] minister's office is putting a lot of pressure on me to destroy the records sooner," Pierre Perron, the assistant commissioner to the director general of the RCMP's Canadian firearms program, wrote in an email on May 29, 2012.

In another set of emails, officials in the firearms program discussing when records would be erased noted that "there will be pressure from senior RCMP to move up the delete date."

"Between you and me, someone will owe us lots of drinks at [the Prime Minister's Office] if they want this to happen by end of August."

The long-gun registry records were destroyed between Oct. 26 and Oct. 31, 2012, according to the RCMP.

Conservatives reject allegations

At the heart of the commissioner's investigation is a request made on March 27, 2012, which resulted in two complaints to Legault's office. One of the complaints, filed on Feb. 1, 2013, centred around records missing from the RCMP's response.

The RCMP had given the complainant a copy of the same information it provided to another request.

A spokesman for the Mounties said they are "aware of the allegations and will have an opportunity to respond to them."

"We have made it clear in our testimony before the House of Commons and the Senate on Bill C-59 that the RCMP worked with the Office of the Information Commissioner to provide the information requested and respond to the complaint in question, while also fulfilling our obligations under the Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act," said Harold Pfleiderer in an email to CBC News.

"The destruction of the registration records in 2012 and more recently for Quebec in 2015 was done according to a government-approved implementation plan."

The Liberals confronted the government during question period in the House of Commons on Monday.

"Who in the minister's office counselled that illegal behaviour?" asked Liberal MP Ralph Goodale.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said in response that it was a Conservative government that "ended the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry" and it is now working to fix the loophole allowing people to access outdated data.

"We reject the claim that the RCMP did anything wrong by following the will of Parliament to destroy data from the long-gun registry."