A special prosecutor should investigate the possible destruction of high-level government emails related to the B.C. Rail corruption trial, New Democrat Leonard Krog wrote Thursday to B.C.’s assistant deputy attorney general.
Krog’s letter followed reports out of the ongoing Basi-Virk corruption case that cabinet emails, requested by defence lawyers, may have been destroyed during May’s provincial election.
“How is it,” Krog said Thursday, “that in 2009, during the middle of an election campaign, some order is given to destroy emails that may be relevant to the longest-running political corruption case in B.C. history? It doesn’t pass the sniff test.”
According to media reports, a court heard last month that cabinet emails were only kept for 13 months.
However, an affidavit from the province’s director of messaging and collaboration services said the emails were backed up and sent to a company called EDS for storage.
In May, the order to store the tapes was rescinded, resulting in their possible destruction.
Krog said the order to rescind the hold on the tapes runs contrary to the government’s own policies to preserve records relevant to legal proceedings.
