Cavoukian: she got it wrong. And now she needs to do the honourable thing.
Here are quotes from statements that Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s “Information and Privacy Commissioner,” made on June 5:
And:
And:
In sum, she (a) accused people of engaging in a criminal cover-up; (b) she suggested that the criminality was part of “a culture;” and – assigning herself the role of political analyst – she (c) urges voters to vote the way she, you know, wants them to. Immediately thereafter, Opposition politicians also started braying and screeching that laws had been broken, and the OPP decided to investigate Cavoukian’s claims.
Even before yesterday’s revelations, all of that stuff was bad enough. But Cavoukian – who usually devotes herself more religiously to international junkets paid for by the taxpayer, but has not once come into Minister’s offices to educate staff about the rules, in the way that the Ontario Integrity Commissioner regularly does – wasn’t done. No, sir. She loved the attention that her statements, and her over-the-top report, received. Her taxpayer-funded profile, as one former cabinet minister told me last week, suggests that she is quite fond of herself. So she kept at it, and dialled up the rhetoric and the hysterical tone.
On June 25, then, she was back before the klieg lights, saying:
And, about Chris Morley, Dalton McGuinty’s former Chief of Staff:
There she goes again: a conspiracy existed to “shield activities” from public view. Political staff were all a bunch of fibbers. And Chris Morley – who she did not interview or communicate, not once, before defaming him on an occasion where she knew she couldn’t be sued – was a liar. (When pressed, however, she admitted that Morley’s testimony had been “technically true,” quote unquote. Not many media reported that little factoid.)
Her turn before the committee and the Queen’s Park media done, Cavoukian then went on a media tour, appearing on as many TV and radio programs as she possibly could, and thereby wringing out of Maclean’s that she was “a rock star,” quote unquote.
She’s not a rock star. She’s (best case) incompetent or (worst case) a phoney, fabricating fabulist.
Yesterday’s news shows why. On June 5, she stated as a fact that emails had been “deleted,” and thereafter launched a campaign of defamation against people who mostly were in no position to defend themselves. On July 10, she revealed that, well, um, er, the emails hadn’t been “deleted” after all.
That’s a pretty big mistake, considering what her mistake led to – headlines, subpoenas and a police investigation. Her excuse is that some unidentified functionary in government told her the emails had been deleted, and it was that person who got it wrong, not her. But that’s not good enough, for five reasons.
- Cavoukian has a huge staff who are paid to – and supposedly expert in – weeding out information. They didn’t.
- By her own admission she rushed her report out the door – most likely, in my view, to capitalize on the political heat the gas plants issue was generating.
- Before accusing people of actual crimes, and viciously attacking them in print and on air, she had a legal obligation to leave no stone unturned. She didn’t do that.
- Similarly, before she kick-started a police investigation, she needed to ensure that there was no possibility – none – that she was wrong. She didn’t do that, either.
- Her report, and her subsequent comments, were as bad – if not worse – than the sort of crap John Gomery used to say, and for which he was later shredded by the Federal Court.
By her conduct, and by her words, Ann Cavoukian has diminished herself, her office, and an important issue. She has acted recklessly, without regard to the facts, and without regard for the reputations of innocent people. And – most seriously – she is the person most responsible for the launching of an actual police investigation that, we now learn, is based on her own factual error.
The emails weren’t deleted. What deserves deletion, instead, is Ann Cavoukian.
Resign, now.
Forum, deconstructed
Kooky Cavoukian et al. are full of shit
The entire premise of her previous hyperventilation and hysteria – that emails had been “deleted” – was false.
She, and the Opposition parties, got it wrong. They hadn’t been deleted, at all.
Cavoukian and the PCs and NDP owe McGuinty et al. an apology. Personally, if I were them, I’d sue for every statement that Cavoukian and her winged monkeys made on a non-privileged occasion.
Oh, and that OPP investigation that Cavoukian’s half-cocked claims kick-started? I guess that’ll be wrapping up, now.
In the meantime, the OPP should charge Cavoukian et al. with mischief. And/or wasting taxpayer dollars.
On that horrid witch Jan Wong: a legal review
My former partner and colleague at McBinch, who is far more judicious in his language than I would have been, assesses the latest legal twist in the Wong saga. He’s nicer to her than I have been.
Worth a read, right here. A fine lawyer from a fine firm.
Howard Levitt’s ride
How do I know Howard’s fun? Last time I saw him, he was at an SFH show, selling our merch at the Bovine Sex Club, and grinning from ear to ear.
No snob is Levitt. Only advice I’d give him? Get a Jeep like me. I hit that huge flood on Bayview, water was way up the side, and I cruised right through it.
Better than one of those sissy sport cars!
Warren vs. Bell Mobility, et al.
I tried to be nice. I tried to be polite. Now, they get Mean Angry Warren.
UPDATE: Aaaaand the social media team is heard from. They should be so timely before things go to DefCon One. Might remove the need for a social media team.
Toronto’s electricity grid is “hanging by a thread”
…so says Hydro and others. So, then, why are shops like Mac in Yorkville keeping the doors to their air conditioned premises open in this way?
Send along pix of more such firms. This is totally outrageous.
Me on Giambrone
We’re pals, full disclosure, so I am happy to see Adam running. And I meant what I told Global’s Jackson Proskow: the only people who care about most of these so-called scandals, anymore, are the politicos and the media. Real folks just don’t.
Adam is a smart guy and a hard worker; I think he gives the Libs and the PCs a real problem in that by-election. As in, he could win.
In today’s Sun: re-regulate, now
In the coming weeks and months, as Canada attempts to comprehend the cataclysm that struck Lac-Megantic on the weekend, government and citizens will attempt to determine the cause – and assign blame.
So far, there have been suggestions that the runaway train that leveled downtown Lac-Megantic may have been caused by human error, or sabotage, or a mysterious fire. We have also heard, correctly, that transporting combustible materials at high speeds through populated areas is a probably a very bad idea, and that pipelines are less hazardous.
Given the immensity of the destruction in Lac-Megantic, however – and given the possibility that as many as four dozen people may have been killed when crude oil on board detonated – it is too soon to start guessing about what did, and what didn’t, cause the catastrophe. A sad procession of probes, inquests and commissions of inquiry will determine who, and what, is culpable. Rushing to judgment serves no one in Lac-Megantic.
But of the many railway disasters that have taken place in this country in recent years, we need not be so patient. In those thousands of documented cases, from coast to coast, one thing emerges – again and again – as a cause. It is cited a reason for hundreds of deaths, injuries and accidents, no matter who is in power, and no matter where the railway disasters take place.
Deregulation.
Over the past two decades or so, government has systematically withdrawn from overseeing what happens on our 50,000 kilometres of rail tracks in Canada. The result has been death for citizens and railway workers, damage to the environment, and billions in lost property.
A definitive history of Canada’s rail safety regime, written by a brilliant lawyer named Wayne Benedict, concluded as much. “[Canada has a] need for effective regulation of railway safety to safeguard the interests of the public and society, the environment, railways and their personnel,” Benedict wrote the U.S.-based Transportation Law Journal in 2007.
“The deregulation of Canada’s railway safety regulatory regime…making the railway responsible for the management of its own safety…has not, and is not, adequately protecting the Canadian public.”
To prepare his study, Benedict examined hundreds of rail accidents over many years. In particular, he looked at the major rail catastrophes that preceded Lac-Megantic: the November 1979 Mississauga derailment, which led to the evacuation of a quarter of a million citizens from their homes; the February 1986 Hinton, Alberta collision, which saw 26 people killed, and nearly a hundred seriously injured; and the August 1996 Edson, Alberta crash that killed the crew, and caused millions in damage.
In each of these cases – and in hundreds of others he examined – Benedict grimly analyzed the official response to the rail tragedies. After Mississauga, the Grange Commission urged that government needed to start inspecting again, and not just leave it “entirely to the railways.” After Hinton, the Foisy Commission declared that the “regulatory environment within which the railway system operates…is inadequate.”
Concluded Benedict, now practicing law in Calgary: “Trains are fast, powerful, often carry explosive or deadly poisonous dangerous goods, mere metres from our homes and our children’s schools…Parliament must move to restore rail safety regulatory enforcement power. It is time for government to take back the safety obligations that have been granted to the railway industry.”
Oh, and before he became a respected lawyer?
Wayne Benedict was certified locomotive engineer.