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OTTAWA — The office of Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to media coverage of his department’s decision to spurn recycling and buy new furniture for a building under renovations by asking bureaucrats to publicly call the reports “false,” newly released internal emails reveal.

The correspondence, released to Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation, shows that Kent, who has declined to publicly comment on the controversy since last July, was informed about the issue at Place Vincent Massey, a building in Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa, as bureaucrats from his department and Public Works and Government Services Canada worked to explain their decisions.

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The government paid $141,000 to store furniture for a year, during renovations at the office building that would be increasing its number of workstations.

It then attempted to dump the material through an online auction and buy new furniture.