VICTORIA - B.C.'s information and privacy commissioner says she's examining privacy issues related to a Liberal government plan to use public resources to try to woo the ethnic vote.
Commissioner Elizabeth Denham says she wants to find out if a former aid to Premier Christy Clark tried to evade access to information laws when he used his personal email, instead of a government email account, to exchange messages about the plan.
She also wants to know if personal information was inappropriately shared when details about members of the ethnic community were exchanged between bureaucrats and the B.C. Liberal party.
Denham says she's launched a preliminary investigation into the multicultural outreach plan, and once that's done a decision will be made on whether to start a formal investigation.
A report released last week by Clark's Deputy Minister John Dyble said government resources were misused on the ethnic plan, including having one bureaucrat work for both the government caucus and the Liberal party while being paid as a government employee.
After the release of the report, Clark said the Liberal party had written a cheque to repay the government for work that bureaucrats did for her party, and pointed out two staff members in her office have since resigned without severance.
