OTTAWA - A top political aide who blocked the release of a sensitive report requested under the Access to Information Act has acknowledged his error -- and has been stripped of his duties reviewing such files, says his boss.
"What my employee tells me here is that he really lacked judgment," Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis said in an interview Tuesday with The Canadian Press.
"He is an employee who has exceptional parliamentary skills. But he won't be in charge of access-to-information files anymore."
Last summer, Sebastien Togneri issued a terse email to officials in the Public Works Department telling them to "unrelease" a report on the government's real-estate portfolio when he learned it was being sent uncensored to The Canadian Press.
The news agency had asked for the 137-page document under the Access to Information Act, and had paid all photocopy fees. Togneri insisted that only 30 pages be released.
The file contained sensitive information about the performance of the government's real estate portfolio, such as missed targets and high maintenance costs.
A bureaucrat had to dash down to the Public Works mailroom to retrieve the sealed package. And for the next three months, public servants, Justice Department lawyers and consultants all agreed there was no legal basis to withhold any of the document.
Despite that consensus, Togneri's view prevailed and the heavily pruned report was sent to The Canadian Press 82 days later than required by the law.
"If Mr. Togneri on my staff made a mistake, I am really sorry," Paradis said. "I am not happy about that."
Paradis was Public Works minister at the time of the July 27 incident, and Togneri was his parliamentary affairs director. He followed his boss in the same capacity when Paradis was shuffled to Natural Resources last month.
The office of the information commissioner of Canada has fast-tracked a complaint from The Canadian Press about the apparent political interference in the request.
Paradis said Togneri will be co-operating with the investigation.
"He does have an explanation so I told him, listen, you will submit that to the commissioner," he said.
"Everybody is allowed to make mistakes. I worked with Mr. Togneri in the past two years. He has exceptional skills at the parliamentary level. But I asked him to stop dealing with access-to-information requests."
A spokeswoman for Paradis said earlier that Togneri was simply trying to save the news agency photocopy costs of $27.40, by providing the option of a free 30 pages.
The option, however, was never offered and the fees in any case had already been paid.
Freedom-of-information activists and lobbyists say they have long suspected political interference in the handling of requests, but that it is rare to find an email trail documenting the problem.
A decade ago a senior Public Works bureaucrat made headlines when it was revealed she stood up to her political masters by refusing to sign off on a request in which the minister's office had interfered.
Meanwhile, a British Columbia group has written to the federal prosecutions office asking them to consider charging Togneri under a section of the Access to Information Act that refers to concealing a record.
The letter Tuesday from the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association cites Public Works emails as evidence that Togneri may have committed an indictable offence under Section 67.1 of the act, which has never before been used in a prosecution.
