The Basi-Virk scandal just won’t go away, although it does tend to go into hibernation once in a while. Like it did during the recent May election, when the NDP inexplicably gave Gordon Campbell a free ride on the questions. In fact the only party to really challenge the government was the one without any chance of winning: The B.C. Conservative party. But because they didn’t get very much press, and because the NDP chose not to join the Conservatives in grilling the government, the election came and went without changing the status quo.
Two journalists who have fastidiously covered the Basi-Virk trial outside of the mainstream press reporting is Globe writer Gary Mason and 24 hours columnist Bill Tieleman. Last Thursday Mr.Mason revealed that tapes containing the email correspondence of the Premier and the members of his cabinet were destroyed in early May, during the very election campaign. In an affidavit by Rosmarie Mayes, director in charge of government messaging, her department requested that backup emails prior to May, 2004, be permanently deleted. But according to government guidelines, government documents younger than 7 years are not to be destroyed, and in particular these emails should have been quarantined owing to their relevance before the courts:
Disclosure Requirements for Legal Proceedings
1.Ministries must list all relevant records in their custody or control under the Attorney General’s discovery of documents.
2.Government records destruction schedules must be suspended during court orders for Demand of Discovery.
3.Records disposition must be suspended during legally mandated reviews (e.g., litigation, document discovery, and commissions of inquiry.)
The mystery, as it were, is who ordered those emails destroyed in the middle of the election campaign.
The government won’t say because it’s “before the courts”. But as Gary Mason notes, emails of a potentially damaging nature being ordered destroyed as recently as May, is disturbing enough to warrant a possible obstruction-of-justice investigation. At stake to the defendants, former aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk, is possible orders contained in the emails that would exonerate them from the corruption charges.
The NDP has requested the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate such obstruction theories. Even more strange is the new affidavit from Ms.Hayes contradicts her previous court-filed version from June that said the emails had all been destroyed much earlier. It’s certainly caught the attention and ire of Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett presiding over the case.
In Mark Hume’s column in the Globe today, he reports that Justice Bennett has ordered Premier Campbell and his top officials to turn over their email records to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. That includes emails from former ministers, such as Gary Collins and Christy Clark, now a radio talk show host for CKNW in Vancouver.
Said attorney-general critic for the NDP, Leonard Krog, on the ruling: “Nobody in British Columbia is above the law, including Premier Gordon Campbell and the Liberal Party and the people who work for Gordon Campbell. The fact is they are going to be accountable to Justice Bennett in this court.”
