Briefly: Someone in Premier David Eby’s office mixed-up social media messages in memory of the Holocaust with the anniversary of a mass-shooting at a Quebec mosque. The incident attracted international media attention as the Israel-Hamas war raged on the other side of the world. B.C.’s independent FOI watchdog has dropped an investigation into deletion of records about the incident.
Bob Mackin
B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) refused to interview staff in NDP Premier David Eby’s office over the deletion of records about a social media mixup that gained international media attention during the Israel-Hamas war.
David Eby’s Jan. 27 error on X. (@Dave_Eby)
Instead of correctly recognizing Jan. 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Eby messages on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram said “we stand with the Muslim community throughout Canada on this sorrowful day of remembrance.”
That message should have run Jan. 29, the day of action against Islamophobia and anniversary of the 2017 killing of six people at a Quebec City mosque.
During a Jan. 29 visit to Ottawa, Eby apologized and called the incident unacceptable. But he refused to discuss what he considered a personnel matter.
Instead of correctly recognizing Jan. 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Eby messages on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram said “we stand with the Muslim community throughout Canada on this sorrowful day of remembrance.”
That message should have run Jan. 29, the day of action against Islamophobia and anniversary of the 2017 killing of six people at a Quebec City mosque.
During a Jan. 29 visit to Ottawa, Eby apologized and called the incident unacceptable. But he refused to discuss what he considered a personnel matter.
“I understand that you believe there should be records responsive to your request: however, the OIPC has no authority to compel a public body to explain why it does not have a copy of records that an applicant believes should exist,” Graves wrote in an email on Oct. 1, eight days before he closed the file.
In fact, the law does give the OIPC the power to order someone to answer questions under oath or affirmation and to hand over records. It did so when previous commissioner Elizabeth Denham found evidence in 2015 of mass-deleting throughout Christy Clark’s BC Liberal government.
NDP amendments to the law make it an offence to wilfully mislead or obstruct the OIPC or wilfully evade the public records law. The maximum fine upon conviction is $50,000.
The OIPC is officially an independent office of the Legislature, but it relies on the finance and government services committee to approve its annual budget. In 2023-2024, the OIPC reported $10.8 million in operating expenses. Eby’s office, by comparison, was allotted $17 million for the current fiscal year.
Until the Legislature dissolved Sept. 21 and the election was triggered, the NDP held a majority on both the committee that approves OIPC budgets and in the Legislature.
Former Newfoundland and Labrador commissioner Michael Harvey began his six-year term as the B.C. commissioner in May, succeeding Michael McEvoy.
The Green Party promises to do away with the $10 tax on FOI applications, imposed by the NDP in 2021. The Conservatives say in their platform that they will enact reforms “to achieve such a high level of voluntary and mandatory disclosure that FOIs can become obsolete. It’s time to bring government our of the shadows.”
FOI is not mentioned in the NDP platform. Its one-page response to a B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association questionnaire said: “We’re going to keep being transparent and making sure the system works for people.”
In January, McEvoy reported that the NDP government illegally exceeded FOI deadlines in 5,100 cases between 2020 and 2023. By the 2022-23 fiscal year, applicants were forced to wait an average 192 additional business days for a response from the government.
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