The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
VICTORIA — The B.C. government appears to have systemically breached its freedom of information law by withholding information related to the collapse of the tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine, environment lawyers say.
The province has refused to provide recent inspection reports related to the tailings pond, saying such information may undermine any one of three investigations to determine why the dam failed on Aug. 4, sending a torrent of toxic waste and debris into surrounding waterways.
But when provincial officials refused to hand over a 22-year-old report on the Mount Polley mine, the legal director for the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre decided the suppression of information had gone too far.
“The provincial government’s refusal to provide timely access is not only highly troubling, but verges on the absurd,” said Calvin Sandborn in a 60-page submission asking B.C.’s Information and Privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham for a review of the province’s conduct. The 1992 report was sitting on a shelf in the Williams Lake public library and a helpful librarian eventually sent him a copy.
The release of government documents relating to “the greatest mining environmental disaster in B.C. history is a matter of clear and pressing public interest,” Mr. Sandborn argued. “The only people without the documents – the people being kept in the dark – are the public of British Columbia.”
Other Canadian jurisdictions routinely release data such as safety inspection reports and government orders related to tailings ponds. However, the B.C. government has blocked the release of documents, saying public disclosure may undermine its ability to prosecute under the Mines Act or other legislation.
The law centre requested the 1992 and 1997 environmental assessment reports on the dam on Aug. 18. The Environmental Assessment Office refused to make the documents available and recommended the office make a formal request under freedom of information.
Ms. Denham has criticized the province for routinely failing to respond to freedom of information requests within legal time limits, and Mr. Sandborn said that avenue would only lead to unseemly delays.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/governments-suppression-of-mount-polley-report-verges-on-the-absurd-lawyer/article20975496/