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But a month-and-a-half later, the RCMP sent the following email: “Based on the information provided, a search for records was conducted in Ottawa, Ontario.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to locate records which respond to your request. Please be advised that it is our responsibility to abide by governmental policies, including the disposition schedules established by Library and Archives Canada. It is likely that any RCMP record that may have existed has been purged.”

The RCMP directed any further questions to their own access office, which hasn’t yet responded.

This doesn’t mean that all RCMP documents on the topic are gone, but the ones approved for public release are no longer available.

There’s more. All access documents released this year by the RCMP have disappeared from the government’s Open Government website, which lists completed access-to-information requests so that the public can find them.

The RCMP released more than 300 sets of access documents in 2014, and more than 800 in 2015, but all the 2016 documents are gone. When the website was checked as recently as late May, a long list of RCMP documents existed on the site.

Dozens of other federal departments and agencies remain on the list. (There’s also a listing for the RCMP External Review Committee, but this is different from the RCMP.)

However, Library and Archives says it does not tell the RCMP or anyone else to destroy any documents, and has no policy on destroying them. The department gives authorization to destroy documents once they “no longer have operational utility,” it said in an email, but this “does not constitute a requirement to destroy, nor does it provide direction regarding the timing of records destruction.” It said the timing of records disposal is left up to individual departments.