Bob Mackin
Brave new world: In British Columbia, a new ruling from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) appears to say it is legal for elected officials to use a messaging app during a meeting and then delete the messages.
Stanley Park entrance on West Georgia (Mackin)
Setting the scene
Dec. 11, 2023: the first meeting of Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation after Mayor Ken Sim announced his plan to transition from an elected to an appointed Park Board.
Ex-commissioners came to watch current commissioners grapple with the anti-democratic proposal. Three 2022-elected commissioners were suddenly kicked out of Sim’s ABC party.
One of several ex-commissioners in the gallery, Sarah Blyth-Gerszak, snapped smartphone photos showing a chat group called “Transition Team” on the screen of ABC Comm. Marie-Claire Howard’s smartphone.
Howard was communicating on the encrypted Signal app with fellow ABC Comm. Angela Haer and party staffer Christy Thompson.
The city’s freedom of information office told theBreaker.news after a Dec. 12 request that none of the messages existed anymore and claimed the ABC politicians were not discussing government business.
Investigators didn’t investigate
In 2013, then-Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said use of a personal account does not absolve a public official from the duty to disclose records under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).
Under the NDP government, the law now includes a maximum $50,000 fine upon conviction for “a person who wilfully conceals, destroys or alters any record to avoid complying with a request for access to the record.”
But the case review manager at the OIPC told theBreaker.news in March 2025 that the agency would not investigate the ABC Signal chat deletion.
“Due to limited resources, we are not able to pursue every potential instance of non-compliance with FIPPA,” wrote LeeAnn Whitworth.
The Legislature earmarked $11.8 million to the OIPC in 2024-2025 and it had 55.5 full-time equivalent staff last year.
Whitworth referred the case to an adjudicator to decide the narrow issue of whether the Park Board met its legal requirement to respond openly, accurately and completely.
Howard’s lawyer, Ryan Berger of Lawson Lundell LLP, argued the records were not in her custody and control and were not related to Park Board business.
A Feb. 21, 2025 report by the Park Board’s integrity commissioner, Lisa Southern, found Howard was one of the six ABC commissioners who broke the open meetings law during private meetings in 2023 at Sim’s house and on the Signal app. Southern concluded the meetings should have been held in public.
Marie-Claire Howard (left), Christy Thompson and Angela Haer. (Park Board/ABC)
What the adjudicator said
In a March 9 ruling, OIPC adjudicator David Adams said the Park Board responded openly, accurately and completely.
“As for the deletion of the chat, I found above that the Park Board did not have custody or control of it. The Park Board commissioners’ deletion of their copies of the chat did not amount to a failure of the Park Board to assist the applicant under section 6(1). While the applicant has concerns about the Park Board’s failure to provide the chat, the public body took reasonable steps to locate and provide the chat and its response adequately explains why the chat was not provided.”
What the adjudicator didn’t do
The adjudicator admitted that section 44(1) of the law allows him to order witnesses to attend and answer questions and to order the production of documents.
“However, I have not found it necessary to do so in this case,” Adams wrote. “The evidence provided by the parties was sufficient for me to decide all the issues in this inquiry.”
Bottom line
In B.C., you can be an elected official, sit around a meeting held in public, share messages with at least another elected official and someone at your political party, delete the messages and claim (without showing proof) that the messages were not about governing. All of that, without any consequences from the agency that is supposed to enforce the law.
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