An expert in freedom of information law says he has never seen such disrespectful behaviour toward a provincial FOIP commissioner as has been displayed by Alberta Justice in a long-running inquiry.

"I am at a loss to explain their contemptuous behaviour and their attitude, which is cavalier to say the least. It is beyond the pale," said Ottawa lawyer Michel Drapeau.

Drapeau made the comments after reading a letter recently sent to the parties in an ongoing inquiry over documents related to how Alberta chose a legal consortium to sue the tobacco industry.

CBC News and lawyers for the tobacco industry separately requested an inquiry after the ministry chose to withhold dozens of pages of documents sought through freedom of information (FOIP) requests.

Access to the documents is controversial because CBC News has published a series of stories that revealed the supposedly independent review process had been manipulated. In 2010, former premier Alison Redford, who was then the justice minister, personally chose a legal consortium with which she shared close personal and political ties.

CBC News subsequently revealed the successful consortium had initially been ranked last and effectively eliminated from the competition. Redford told CBC News she was never informed that the consortium she chose had been ranked last.

Because of a potential conflict of interest, Alberta freedom of information commissioner Jill Clayton hired former Nova Scotia FOIP commissioner Dulcie McCallum to conduct the inquiry.

Frustration with Justice delays

The inquiry began in June 2014 and McCallum, on several occasions recently, has expressed frustration with Justice for ignoring deadlines while attempting to impose its own deadlines on the inquiry, failing to provide documents when promised, and even attempting to define what was, and was not, an issue in the inquiry.

In a recent letter, McCallum took to task David Phillip Jones, an Edmonton lawyer hired by Justice, for failing to meet a promised deadline to provide more documents.

"With all due respect, Mr. Jones, it has now been well over two weeks since the new records release was due [17 days] and, as of tomorrow, four weeks since you first alerted the parties and myself that the ministry was prepared to release this new part of the Records at Issue," McCallum wrote in a Sept. 29.

McCallum pointed out to Jones that the records had already been assembled for various other purposes, which include an ongoing ethics investigation and enquiries by the RCMP.

"For the record, this delay leaves me with grave concerns about the integrity of the Records at Issue in this inquiry," McCallum wrote. "What is the complete and relevant version integral to the inquiry? How it is possible four years after the access-to-information request that the records to be released - primarily presumably those documents withheld as non-responsive [drafts and beyond December 31, 2010] - cannot be compiled in a more timely fashion?"

In August, McCallum took the extraordinary step of asking CBC News and the tobacco industry's lawyers to provide her with documents that Justice either could not, or would not, give her.

"At this point in the inquiry, it is troubling to note that the applicants have more of the records than the external adjudicator," she wrote.

Minister responsible for disrespect

Drapeau said the ministry, and ultimately, Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley, are responsible for the disrespect shown to the inquiry, to McCallum, and to commissioner Jill Clayton, who is an independent officer of the legislature.

"He is not doing this of his own volition," Drapeau said of Jones, the ministry's outside lawyer. "He is doing this because this is what the client wants. This is the tone the client wants and this is the results and the message the client wants to send."

CBC News provided McCallum's Sept. 29 letter to Ganley's press secretary and asked for Ganley to explain why she had allowed her ministry to behave as it had in the inquiry, as clearly shown by the complaints in McCallum's letter. Ganley did not respond.

McCallum, in the most-recent letter, demanded that Jones provide the promised documents by the end of the following day, Sept. 30.

The documents were provided on time. But a cursory inspection revealed some pages that were shown to have been released, were not in the package of documents.

It's not known when the inquiry might be completed.

@charlesrusnell@jennierussell