A briefing note to Ray Novak, released to Postmedia News under the access to information law, shows that Harper’s right-hand man was informed on June 25 about the answer to be sent imminently to an access-to-information request. On the same day, PCO bureaucrats sent the Prime Minister’s Office the “red files” — the term used for flagged requests that could be politically sensitive or damaging to a department or minister.
Three days later, a response was sent out to the requester — Liberal MP Ralph Goodale — that the PCO had not found any documents in its “control or custody” related to Duffy, Sen. Pamela Wallin’s expenses, or any emails between Duffy and Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright.
That response was the first of many handed out over the summer as information requests, which any Canadian can file, came back with negative responses. At Public Works and Government Services Canada, according to documents released to Postmedia News, officials asked why there were no records regarding Duffy’s cheque to the Senate that repaid his improper housing expenses, which they called a “hot issue” requiring a response.
“Everyone who looked at it is scratching their heads,” Goodale said. “There’s no paper trail here at all. That strained credulity that could have been the case at all.”
According to documents, messages were also sent to Chris Woodcock, who was in charge of issues management for the PMO, and Catherine Rudick, a communications officer for PCO, the central bureaucracy that aids the prime minister and cabinet. Each received a “copy of (the) proposed response package,” according to an internal mail slip.
Information officers can give a minister’s office or ministry a heads-up about an impending release of documents. Also known as “amberlighting,” politically sensitive files, or those that could be used against a department or minister, are usually flagged either by information officers, the minister’s office or communications staff.
“The bureaucrats would on occasion give you a heads-up, but there was no further communication than that. In other words, ‘this is going to happen — period.’ There was no wiggle room to say, ‘well, we wish it wouldn’t happen,’” said Goodale, a former cabinet minister in the Martin and Chretien governments.
The documents don’t outline who made the decision to send the “red files” to the Prime Minister’s Office.
There is no evidence in the files that there was any political interference in the request.
The lack of any documents in the Wright-Duffy affair has been fodder for opposition critics as well as requesters, who have filed more complaints to Canada’s information watchdog. According to the information commissioner’s office, the number of complaints related to responses where no record existed has increased to 34 per cent of complaints so far in 2013 from 19 per cent in 2011-2012 fiscal year.
The Liberals used the lack of any paper trail from two of their information requests in a press conference in late July to keep the Senate spending scandal in the public view during the summer months.
Harper and senior senators connected to the scandal have all said they were not aware of Wright’s agreement with Duffy until it was revealed in May, three months after the deal was struck.
The scandal has simmered for months with the release of court documents outlining allegations against Duffy, and last month with the release of a long-awaited audit of Wallin’s travel spending.
The Senate decided Wallin should reimburse the upper chamber $100,601 for improper travel expense claims, on top of the $38,369 she had already repaid. A Senate spokeswoman confirmed Wallin received a hand-delivered letter on Aug. 16 giving her 30 days to pay back the money or face a clawback of her salary.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Jordan Press
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