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Here’s how the Harper government betrayed the information commissioner and tried to hide it:

The Harper government’s propaganda machine was busy on May 7, a Thursday. At precisely 9 a.m. the government’s central PR site posted the first of what would turn out to be 39 press releases for the day.

One informed the nation that “Phil McColeman, Member of Parliament for Brant, on behalf of the Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, will present a 2015 National Recreational Fisheries Award to Mr. Rod Jones …”

Two releases announced modest federal contributions to projects in Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s riding. Only one would actually qualify as news: the government’s plan to deny passports to Canadians wanting to travel to the Middle East as jihadists.

You would have searched in vain, however, to find a press release for what was the most significant thing the Harper government did that day — the betrayal of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault.

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The Harper government did it by stealth when it introduced Bill C-59, an omnibus bill ostensibly intended to implement federal budget provisions. Buried deep in the 157 pages of this legislation were a few paragraphs of thick legal lingo that will retroactively absolve the RCMP of criminal liability for destroying gun registry documents in violation of the Access to Information Act.

The propaganda machine generated heavy static with its 39 propaganda releases and other diversions — enough to keep overworked reporters from reading C-59 too closely and asking inconvenient questions about why a budget bill was retroactively suspending provisions of the Information Act.

The Harper government has many brass horns to trumpet its achievements — even the most modest — and to muffle the sound of promises to the information commissioner being broken.

How big is the propaganda machine? Well, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reported last year the government employs no fewer than 3,300 communications staffers whose primary function is to make the government look good. The cost to taxpayers is $263 million a year.

The total number of journalists in the press gallery — your independent watchdogs on government — is less than 300. And no newspaper, television network or other Canadian media outfit has anything like the funds the government has available to manufacture propaganda. With these vast resources, the government had every reason to believe it could pull a fast one – as it tried to do with C-59 and Commissioner Legault.

Working in secret, Harper government officials, communications strategists and cabinet ministers plotted to shut Legault’s investigation down. The government wants to give itself and the Mounties a get-out-of-jail-free card. Working in secret, Harper government officials, communications strategists and cabinet ministers plotted to shut Legault’s investigation down. The government wants to give itself and the Mounties a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Here’s the background. In opposition, the Conservatives promised they would abolish the rifle registry. With a majority government in the Commons after the last election, the Conservatives thought it would be a snap. But before the Harper government could act, various legal and political challenges were launched.

The Quebec government devised a plan for its own gun registry, building on the federal registry data from the province. Commissioner Legault and her office became involved when a citizen filed an access to information request with the federal government for a copy of the gun registry. On March 27, 2012 that citizen filed a formal complaint with Legault, claiming the public’s right of access was being thwarted by the government. (Privacy laws prevent her from disclosing the identity of the complainant. But here’s a clue: The complaint was filed in French.)

Legault wrote to Vic Toews — who was the Public Safety minister and cabinet officer responsible for the gun registry at the time — informing him of the complaint and reminding him that the Access to Information Act prohibited the government from destroying the records until her office and the courts had dealt with the case.

On May 2, 2012 Toews responded on behalf of the Harper government, assuring Legault no records would be destroyed until legal proceedings were complete.

But on Oct. 25, 2012 the RCMP, one of the agencies that reports to the safety minister, began destroying the records.

Legault thinks the RCMP broke the law.

But getting rid of all copies of a digital database is not as easy as pressing a delete key. Copies of parts of the data can survive on the hard drives of many officials who had access to the original database.

Legault began what became a lengthy investigation. She now believes that at least part of the registry still exists on RCMP computers. On March 26 of this year she wrote the government, saying she expected the data to be preserved until legal proceedings are concluded.

She got no response. Instead, working in secret, Harper government officials, communications strategists and cabinet ministers plotted to shut her investigation down. They came up with the legalese buried in budget bill C-59 that would retroactively make the Access to Information Act null and void in regards to the gun registry.

The government wants to give itself and the Mounties a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Legault, a lawyer trained to cut through legal lingo, saw what was happening and blew the whistle. The commissioner is an independent official who reports directly to Parliament. The Harper government can cut her office budget (as it has over the years) and squeeze it of resources. But the Tories can’t stop her from speaking out.

That’s what she did in a special report to Parliament one week after bill C-51 was introduced.

“The proposed changes in Bill C-59,” she wrote, “will deny the right of access of the complainant, it will deny the complainant’s recourse in court and it will render null and void any potential liability against the Crown. Bill C-59 sets a perilous precedent against Canadians’ quasi-constitutional right to know.”

She’s right. But this is not just an attack on access rights. It’s bigger than that. It is an attack on the rule of law.

Jeff Sallot is one of Canada’s most experienced and respected political writers. He worked for The Globe and Mail for more than three decades, much of the time as a political journalist based in Ottawa. He started his career in political journalism at The Toronto Star when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister. He taught journalism at Carleton University for seven years until he retired in 2014.

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