Bob Mackin
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation Comm. Marie-Claire Howard, who is at the centre of the ABC party’s Signal chat scandal, has hired a lawyer to battle theBreaker.news appeal to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC).
ABC’s use of the Signal messaging app was originally exposed by ex-commissioner Sarah Blyth-Gerszak from a seat in the public gallery at the first meeting after Mayor Ken Sim announced he wanted to transition from an elected to an appointed Park Board.
Former Park Board commissioner Sarah Blyth-Gerszak’s photograph of ABC commissioner Marie-Claire Howard’s smartphone at the Dec. 11 Park Board meeting. City hall says the “Transition Team” messages no longer exist. (@sarahblyth/X)
Blyth-Gerszak snapped photos on Dec. 11, 2023 of Howard communicating on a chat group called “Transition Team” with fellow Comm. Angela Haer and ABC staffer Christy Thompson.
When theBreaker.news asked under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) for copies of the Transition Team messages, the city responded in February 2024. It said that records no longer existed and, if they did, they would not be released because they did not relate to city business.
The OIPC, citing “limited resources,” chose not to investigate whether Howard and others wilfully destroyed or concealed public records — an offence punishable with a fine up to $50,000. Instead, it sent the matter to an inquiry, where an adjudicator will decide whether the Park Board met its legal obligation to respond openly, accurately and completely.
On April 7, Howard’s lawyer, Ryan Berger of Lawson Lundell LLP, asked the OIPC to allow Howard to argue the records were not in the Park Board’s custody and control and were not related to Park Board business.
“Our client should not be put in a position to have to provide submissions or evidence under other FIPPA provisions if the records are outside of the adjudicator’s jurisdiction,” Berger wrote.
OIPC director of adjudication Elizabeth Barker responded April 23, confirming it will invite Howard to participate in the inquiry. She dismissed Berger’s request, because splitting the inquiry in two parts would stretch OIPC’s limited resources.
“It could also result in an added delay for the applicant who made his access request well over a year ago,” Barker wrote.
Howard has not responded to questions about whether Vancouver taxpayers are paying for her lawyer.
A Feb. 21 report by the Park Board’s integrity commissioner, Lisa Southern, found Howard was one of the six commissioners elected under the ABC banner in 2022 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.
Comm. Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Scott Jensen left ABC in December 2023 to sit as independents when Sim announced he wanted to end the elected park board.
The remaining ABC commissioners, Haer, Howard and Jas Virdi, did not initially respond to Southern’s letters. Southern was advised last September that they hired a lawyer.
When they did respond, they asked for the complaint to be dismissed. They denied breaching the open meetings principle, called the complaint out of scope and a waste of taxpayers’ money and claimed their actions were protected by Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Southern rejected their defence.
Signal is the open source, encrypted messaging app that members of the Trump administration used to discuss plans to bomb Houthi terrorists in Yemen. They inadvertently included the editor of The Atlantic.
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