B.C.'s Privacy Commissioner is investigating complaints that parties seeking Freedom of Information access to pre-election, B.C. government documents relating to the HST were told that no such documents existed.
"That was clearly false," Doug Routley, NDP critic for citizens services, declared Friday. He pointed to the raft of HST material released by the Finance Ministry this week to the media, which had made a similar FOI request.
Yet the NDP was told by the same ministry last fall there were "no responsive records" to provide, after the party applied for HST-related material "that made it to the desk" of the deputy finance minister and Finance Minister Colin Hansen in the months before the 2009 spring election.
The same response was given to the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, which asked the Premier's office for documents dealing with the HST in the five months leading up to the election.
"If this is the intent of the government, to routinely hide information rather than disclosing it, then we have a real crisis of democracy," Mr. Routley said.
Both the NDP and FIPA have asked Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham to investigate.
"We are actively pursuing it," confirmed Patrick Egan, acting manager of investigation and mediation for the commission. "We have an open file on this and we are in communication with the FOI people and the government."
Vincent Gogolek, policy and communications director for FIPA, said the batch of documents given to the media contained briefing notes on the HST for a first ministers' meeting in January, 2009.
"It's a document we thought was there, but we got nothing," he said. "Either they did it deliberately, or they didn't put in a very reasonable effort to find it. That's a problem."
Mr. Routley said the Finance Ministry's claim to have none of the HST material requested by the NDP was further evidence of the Liberals misleading British Columbians over the controversial tax.
The media HST package included a tax briefing document prepared for Mr. Hansen, which the minister has said he glanced at. It was not provided to the NDP.
Mr. Routley said government ministries do not appear to treat all FOI requests the same.
One NDP researcher made 23 FOI requests within a 30-day period, according to Mr. Routley, and received 13 "no records" responses, while the overall "no response" rate is just 24 per cent.
"Clearly, there's a bias, based on different types of requests," he said.
Late Friday, the Finance Ministry released a statement on the complaints, saying: "FOI is handled by professional servants. Each FOI application is treated separately based on the wording of the request. Therefore responses will vary and the requests vary."
If there are questions about the ministry's handling of a request, the applicant can apply to the Privacy Commissioner for a review, the statement added.