VICTORIA — Political staff deliberately destroyed internal records about the Highway of Tears to prevent them from becoming public, alleges a former employee.

Tim Duncan, a former executive assistant to Transportation Minister Todd Stone, said he was ordered to delete files in November, after the Opposition NDP filed a freedom of information request for any records on the issue.

When he hesitated, Duncan said a more senior official in Stone’s office physically took away his computer keyboard and deleted the emails over his objections.

Duncan’s claims, revealed in the legislature Thursday, prompted Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham to launch an investigation into what she deemed “serious allegations of destruction of records by individuals” in Stone’s office.

Stone said he was unaware of the problems within his own ministry until they were raised in the legislature Thursday.

“As minister, I expect the staff who work in my office to adhere 100 per cent to the requirements of the applicable legislation,” he said.

Stone’s ministerial assistant, who allegedly took the keyboard from Duncan, was suspended with pay Thursday, pending the outcome of Denham’s review.

The deleted emails and documents related to how the B.C. government consulted with northern communities and First Nations leaders last year to try to improve safety along the Highway of Tears.

Duncan said he’s not sure what information was contained in the emails because he only saw the subject lines before they were deleted.

When he questioned the appropriateness of the actions in a conversation with the B.C. Liberal caucus research director he said he was told, “It’s like in the West Wing. You do whatever it takes to win.”

Duncan was fired in March.

Eighteen girls and women were murdered or went missing along the Highway of Tears, in northern B.C., between 1969 and 2006.

A renewed RCMP investigation was launched in 2005, but has resulted in only one of the cases being solved.

A missing women commission of inquiry in 2010 made dozens of recommendations for change, including a publicly funded shuttle bus on Highway 16 to connect the remote northern communities. The government has refused to fund the bus service.

The government was criticized last year after officials met with only four aboriginal women during the consultation process. Ministry officials said they asked 32 First Nations communities and chiefs between Prince Rupert and Prince George for meetings, but only 13 replied.

Wilf Adam, chief of the Lake Babine Nation in Burns Lake, located between Prince George and Prince Rupert along Highway 16, said the possible deletion of records bothers him because they could have contained information that would have benefited his community.

He wondered, though, if they were destroyed to hide the fact the government has done little to respond to high-profile recommendations to improve safety along Highway 16.

“Anything like that is a big concern,” he said. “Maybe they deleted that stuff because there was nothing there.”

Adam challenged the government’s stance that Hwy. 16 is safer today, noting he recently gave a ride to two women who were hitchhiking on the long, isolated road where there is poor cellular coverage and few public transit options.

“It is still happening because I picked up a couple myself. I asked them why they are doing this, and it all comes down to economics. They don’t have the money for transportation.”

Gladys Radek, the aunt of Tamara Chipman, who was last seen on Sept. 21, 2005 hitchhiking on Hwy. 16 outside Prince Rupert, was also outraged by the potential destruction of government documents about this case.

“I am so choked. Why are they doing this?” asked Radek, who has spent the last decade raising awareness about her niece and the other victims on the Highway of Tears list.

“To me it is obvious that they have a huge coverup going on with no answers for a decade for my family and no actions or implementing any of the recommendations.”

The government is required by law to archive emails, documents and other records related to its programs and policies, under the Freedom of Information Act. Staff are allowed to delete day-to-day records and inconsequential emails called “transitory” records.

But political staff are increasingly taking records they don’t like, making them transitory and deleting them themselves, Duncan said.

“Some of these guys have 3,000 to 4,000 emails on their computers and what they do is when (an FOI) request comes in they just delete the emails that are being asked about,” he said.

The Opposition has frequently attacked the Liberal government in recent months for the number of FOI requests returned with no records, accusing the government of deleting its paper trail.

NDP leader John Horgan said this most recent case “fits the pattern” seen in previous reports by the privacy commissioner’s office, which have noted that government officials use a predominantly “oral culture” to avoid writing things down that could later become public.

“It’s standard operating procedure for the B.C. Liberals to remove documents, rather than share them with the public,” he said.

rshaw@vancouversun.com

lculbert@vancouversun.com

Click here to read Tim Duncan's complaint

Tim Duncan's letter about the destruction of FOI documents

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