Green Party Leader Elizabeth May reacts to the federal budget on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, March 21, 2013.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says the Conservative government may have violated two laws as it consolidated and closed research libraries in at least three federal departments – in some cases discarding material that was deemed to be surplus or allowing anyone who saw value in it to take it home.
Ms. May, a lawyer, says the Library and Archives of Canada Act appears to have been broken along with the Surplus Crown Assets Act.
The Library and Archives Act says no publication in possession of the government may be discarded or given away unless it has been put under the care and control of the Librarian and Archivist of Canada. In the case of records, the Librarian and Archivist must consent to their destruction, she said. The Surplus Crown Assets Act echoes those rules.
"I don't think (the departments) read the Act before they started throwing things out. And it's clear from eyewitness accounts from various libraries that they weren't tracking things," Ms. May said in a telephone interview this week after raising the matter in Parliament.
The Conservative government appears to have a particular contempt for knowledge, said the Green Party Leader.
"They think 'oh, who needs that stuff?' They don't understand how, in the future, some of the records we keep now for completely different purposes might be invaluable resources," she said. "Even if it's surplus to requirements and you don't need it at all, even if you've got tons of copies, you can't dump it in a dumpster or tell people to come, fill your boots, put it in a truck ...."
Scientists at the Department Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) raised alarms last year when the department closed seven of its 11 regional libraries that housed decades of aquatic research. The material from the closed libraries was consolidated in two primary locations and two other specialized collections. The government says it digitized the material that was discarded.
But scientists say only a fraction of the digitization work was completed before the libraries were closed and it would have been too costly and time-consuming to make electronic copies of everything that has been lost.
At Environment Canada, the department's libraries in Edmonton, Calgary, Yellowknife and Winnipeg have been closed and the material that they once housed has been shipped to Saskatoon. Libraries in Quebec City and Sackville, N.B., have also been closed and others have been reduced in size.
And at Health Canada, the material from the main research library has been sent to the National Science Library at the National Research Council in Ottawa. Health Canada says all of the material will eventually be available digitally.
A spokesman for Health Canada said all decisions with respect to the department's library collection are always made in accordance with the relevant Library and Archives Canada disposition authorities.
Environment Canada said it follows all Library and Archives Act requirements.
A spokeswoman for the DFO said her department obtained the written consent of the Librarian and Archivist in 2011 to dispose of surplus publications. But she did not specify what was covered in that consent.
The spokeswoman also said Library and Archives Canada was offered a number of publications and selected 79 titles, which were shipped to it in November 2013.
A spokesman for Library and Archives Canada said in a statement that the agency provides departments with guidelines and other resources to ensure that the mandatory processes for disposal are understood and followed. Discussions took place with all of the closing departmental libraries to assert Library and Archives Canada's first right of refusal on the publications slated for disposal by a department, he said.
But Ms. May said she called Hervé Déry, the interim Librarian and Archivist of Canada, to ask if he had, in fact, seen any of the material discarded by the federal libraries and if he had seen the material that had been surplussed.
"He said he did not give any written consent for the destruction of material. What he said was 'well, it's not my business basically,'" said Ms. May.
"It was very weird too," she said. "They had two officials from Canadian Heritage with him in the room when he finally called me back. I was trying to reach him for about 10 days and they finally scheduled the call and they said these people are on from Heritage Canada. And I said 'what's your role here exactly?' And they said 'We're just observing.' I said to Mr. Déry 'are you allowed to take calls without anybody on the phone with you?'"
Gloria Galloway is a parliamentary reporter in Ottawa.