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You are here: Home / Featured / Liberals refuse to allow opposition parties to question bureaucrats responsible for the privacy breach

Liberals refuse to allow opposition parties to question bureaucrats responsible for the privacy breach

Morning File, Thursday, April 26, 2018

April 26, 2018 By Tim Bousquet 10 Comments

1. Dirty Dealing, Part 4

Northern Pulp Mill (book cover photo from Joan Baxter’s Book, The Mill). Photo courtesy of Dr. Gerry Farrell

Reports Linda Pannozzo:

Nova Scotia Lands, a provincial crown corporation charged with cleaning up Boat Harbour, played a role in silencing two Dalhousie University researchers whose work studied air pollution coming from the Northern Pulp mill, the Halifax Examiner has learned.

The two researchers, Emma Hoffman and Tony Walker, were the lead authors of a 2017 ambient air study, which revealed that air levels of three volatile organic compounds (VOCs) near the Northern Pulp mill exceeded cancer risk thresholds and “are of primary health concern in terms of population risk.”

Pannozzo attempted to interview the researchers but both declined to speak, citing “ongoing consultations” with the Boat Harbour Remediation Project, which is overseen by Nova Scotia Lands.

Through documents she received from a Freedom of Information request, Pannozzo found that just as the air pollution study was published, the Boat Harbour Environmental Advisory Management Committee discussed “Public Communications” which are “Sensitive at current time and will continue until strategy is finalized.”

“Message control, in whatever form it takes, always has its beneficiaries,” notes Pannozzo:

In the case of the ambient air study, the study authors’ silence certainly reduces, if not eliminates the possibility of inconvenient questions arising about Northern Pulp’s cancer-causing air emissions. Indeed, there isn’t a single news outlet in this province (other than The Halifax Examiner) that has reported on it, likely because the authors wouldn’t agree to speak about it.

Who benefits from this silence?  Take a wild guess.

Click here to read “Dirty Dealing, Part 4: Message Control and the Northern Pulp Mill’s Cancer-Causing Air Emissions.”

This article is for subscribers. Click here to subscribe.

2. Barrington Street bridge ramp

Documents obtained from a Freedom of Information request detail a remarkable discussion among bureaucrats about the Barrington Street bridge ramp, reports Examiner transportation columnist Erica Butler.

At issue was whether the city’s transit buses can safely navigate the turn from the ramp onto the Macdonald bridge, and if not, whether changes could be made to the traffic flow to make that safe turn possible.

And so one Wednesday afternoon last fall, the ramp was closed to other traffic and four buses were assigned to test the curve. The results were mixed, partly because one driver screwed up the assignment.

Still, it looks like buses can use the ramp — or at least will be able to, once minor changes are made. The problem, however, is that all the various components of transit planning in the the area — the Gottingen Street transit lane, the lack of a transit lane in the Cogswell plan, and the bridge ramp design — are happening in isolation from each other.

“It’s all a bit of a house of cards, with each piece of infrastructure highly dependant on the next,” writes Butler. “And this is why projects like the Cogswell redesign and the Gottingen bus lane simply must fit into a larger plan, and not just focus on the relatively small area that they seem to directly impact.”

Click here to read “What’s wrong with the Barrington Street bridge ramp, and can we fix it?”

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The Examiner is about to embark on two very large — and very costly — projects. (You’ll likely learn about one of those tomorrow or Monday.) So, if you’ve been thinking about subscribing but have never quite got around to it, this would be a good time to join.

3. Tantallon highway deaths

“Two people were killed in a single-vehicle crash on Highway 103 between Tantallon and Hubbards on Wednesday,” reports the Chronicle Herald:

Another suffered “serious or life-threatening injures,” according to Staff Sgt. Bruce Briers with the Nova Scotia RCMP.

A fourth person was also hurt but those injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, he said.

The vehicle was a black pickup truck, reports the CBC.

As of 9am, the RCMP hasn’t yet issued a release about the incident.

4. Government prevents questioning about the “privacy breach”

Photo: Halifax Examiner

“Members of the Liberal government blocked attempts on Wednesday to call Internal Services Department officials to testify about the breach of the freedom-of-information website in front of a public committee,” reports Michael Gorman for the CBC:

Following the weekly scheduled hearing of the legislature’s public accounts committee, MLAs were asked to approve a list of seven topics for future debate. One of those was to have officials from the Internal Services Department testify about supplier contracts related to the breach of the freedom-of-information portal.

That didn’t sit well with Liberal MLAs, who hold a majority on the committee. Clare-Digby MLA Gordon Wilson called it “preemptive” to discuss the matter until Auditor General Michael Pickup completes his work on the matter.

…

The five Liberal members of the committee — Wilson, Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Ben Jessome, Brendan Maguire and Hugh MacKay — all voted down the subject. PC MLA and committee member Tim Houston disagreed with Wilson’s logic, noting the auditor general operates separately from the public accounts committee.

“This committee is not beholden to the auditor general’s schedule.”

This is outrageous.

The so-called “privacy breach” is an issue of major public concern. It is entirely appropriate that the opposition question the government about it — indeed, that questioning is necessary if we are ever to fully understand what happened and why.

It’s been evident from the start that the government has been attempting to misdirect attention and cover up its responsibilities — with the premier himself shifting blame by rhetorically convicting a teenager for “stealing” information left on a public-facing provincial website. Now, the same government won’t allow the necessary public questioning of the bureaucrats overseeing the computer system.

5. bcc

“More than 1,000 Nova Scotia government employees who opted for a long-service award payout have been advised their money is coming Thursday,” reports Jean Laroche for the CBC:

But because of an error sending the email, hundreds of their colleagues also know they may be flush with cash this coming payday.

I don’t know that this is truly a privacy breach — the salaries of all provincial employees making more than $25,000 are reported on the province’s Public Accounts webpage, so the payouts would be a matter of easily accessible public record anyway.

But it’s annoying to get an email with a gazillion addresses in the “to” list. It’s astonishing how many people don’t know how to use bcc.

6. Felix Cacchione

“After more than a decade of studying police oversight agencies, Kent Roach sees Felix Cacchione’s appointment as the director of Nova Scotia’s law enforcement watchdog as a potential game changer,” reports Michael Tutton for the Canadian Press.

Tutton goes on to explore important issues related to police oversight boards, and how Cacchione is already functioning.


Government

No public meetings for the rest of the week.


On campus

Saint Mary’s

Thursday

Wrath: Moral Grandstanding and Self-Righteous Anger (Thursday, 7pm, Halifax Central Library) — Justin Tosi from Georgetown University will talk about the rise of intolerance and various related issues.


In the harbour

6am: Alpine Mathilde, oil tanker, arrives at Irving Oil from IJmuiden, Netherlands
6:30am: Selfoss, container ship, arrives at Pier 36 from Argentia, Newfoundland
6:45am: Carmen, car carrier, arrives at Pier 31 from Southampton, England
11am: Don Juan, car carrier, sails from Autoport for sea
11:30am: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Pier 41 to Autoport
11:30am: Selfoss, container ship, sails from Pier 36 for sea
Noon: Artania, cruise ship with up to 1,260 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Portland
2pm: Lundstrom Tide, supply vessel, arrives at Pier 9 from the offshore
4:30pm: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Autoport back to Pier 41
8pm: Artania, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for St. John’s (and thence to Cobh-Cork, Ireland; Torbay, England; and Bremerhaven, Germany)
10pm: Atlantic Sea, ro-ro container, arrives at Fairview Cove from Liverpool, England


Footnotes

The great weather couldn’t last long, could it?

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Barrington Street bridge ramp, Dirty Dealing Part 4, Emma Hoffman, Erica Butler, Felix Cacchione, Government prevents questioning about the "privacy breach", Jean Laroche, Linda Pannozzo, Michael Gorman, Michael Tutton, MLA Ben Jessome, MLA Brendan Maguire, MLA Gordon Wilson, MLA Hugh MacKay, MLA Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, MLA Tim Houston, Tony Walker

About Tim Bousquet

Tim Bousquet is the editor and publisher of the Halifax Examiner. email: [email protected]; Twitter

Comments

  1. Nick says

    April 26, 2018 at 9:34 am

    Can you imagine if the military operated the same way as the Nova Scotia government? Imagine if the places where you could get convicted of espionage for looking at weren’t marked and there were no guards to protect them. Maybe some of the ships in the harbour have the keys in the ignition…

    Log in to Reply
    • John Cascadden says

      April 26, 2018 at 11:17 am

      Conduct to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline
      Marginal note:Prejudicing good order or discipline

      129 (1) Any act, conduct, disorder or neglect to the prejudice of good order and discipline is an offence and every person convicted thereof is liable to dismissal with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service or to less punishment.
      Marginal note:Offence and contraventions prejudicial to good order and discipline

      (2) An act or omission constituting an offence under section 72 or a contravention by any person of

      (a) any of the provisions of this Act,

      (b) any regulations, orders or instructions published for the general information and guidance of the Canadian Forces or any part thereof, or

      (c) any general, garrison, unit, station, standing, local or other orders,

      is an act, conduct, disorder or neglect to the prejudice of good order and discipline.
      Marginal note:Attempts to commit offences

      (3) An attempt to commit any of the offences prescribed in sections 73 to 128 is an act, conduct, disorder or neglect to the prejudice of good order and discipline.
      Marginal note:Saving provision

      (4) Nothing in subsection (2) or (3) affects the generality of subsection (1).

      ****

      In essence Nick, if one does not do something in the way intended, the military has regulations that can be far more restrictive than civilian laws. For one thing, no one in the military would ever think of using a non-standard method to access a military database…. not if they want to maintain their rank and their job. In the military, ignorance is not an acceptable excuse.

      Log in to Reply
      • macdonaldtomw says

        April 26, 2018 at 7:58 pm

        I don’t get it. Was this boy in the military?

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      • mike says

        April 26, 2018 at 11:05 pm

        The way this teenager accessed the website is not non-standard. It is, in fact, routine.

        Log in to Reply
  2. Donna Morris says

    April 26, 2018 at 11:55 am

    Re: 6. Felix Cacchione

    My idealized concept of justice is embodied in and by Felix Cacchione.

    I interacted with him in a lowly service role over a brief period of time many years ago. I doubt he’d even remember the incident I cite, but it’s unforgettable for me.

    Always interested in the law and its role in society, I was aware of who he was from his name alone. He was always courteous, gracious and warm, so profoundly human that I presumptuously asked him once about the lawyer ethics and principles involved in stunning news that had just been exposed, that of lawyer Ken Murray’s role in concealing torture tapes during the Bernardo trial.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/torture-tapes-left-lawyer-traumatized/article18422428/

    Judge Cacchione spontaneously responded without regard to my lowly position or gender. He took time to briefly explain the ethical principles and responded to my conclusion without condescension, with respect and clarity. In that brief interval, an eminent jurist treated a nobody with equality and profound decency.

    There could be none better for this position.

    Log in to Reply
  3. Parker Donham says

    April 26, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    I have no knowledge of military law, but for in civil society, “using a non-standard method to access a … database” hardly sounds like a crime, or even an act of hacking.

    Log in to Reply
    • John Cascadden says

      April 26, 2018 at 3:33 pm

      If a military person used a non-standard method to access a database that was supposed to be full of only “Unclassified” data and when the download was complete, if that person found that there was “Classified” data in the mix, that service person would be obligated to inform someone in authority that the database contained Classified material that should not have been available. The service person would have had to detail why using a non-SOP method was used and why it was deemed necessary…. answering: “Just because I could”, would not be a popular response. The military lives by SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). And if the person did not report the security breach, he would have committed a crime.

      So using a non-SOP may seem to be okay to a civilian; but the consequences when one is in the military could be a threat to national security or life and limb. A fishing expedition for 7000 documents of unknown content (Nnclassified or is an event that most likely would be impossible to defend in a military setting.

      Log in to Reply
      • John Cascadden says

        April 26, 2018 at 3:35 pm

        A fishing expedition for 7000 documents of unknown content (even just Unclassified data) is an event that most likely would be impossible to defend in a military setting.

        Log in to Reply
        • macdonaldtomw says

          April 26, 2018 at 8:03 pm

          Can you cite a (hypothetical) example of some classified information that if divulged would threaten “national security or life and limb” ?

          Also interested if you may know of any people who have been convicted under the regulations you stated above.

          Log in to Reply
          • John Cascadden says

            April 26, 2018 at 10:20 pm

            You can do your own hypothetical assumptions concerning security breaches, and yes I do know persons who were charged and convicted under Article 129 (this a cover all charge); if you are charged with anything in the Canadian military, you also get charged with a 129… it is a catch all.

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