Transitory — Adjective. Not permanent
That’s the dictionary definition.
The provincial government’s definition is more specific as it pertains to the type of government documents that don’t have to be kept on file.
“Transitory records are defined in the Management of Information Act as government records of temporary usefulness in any format or medium having no ongoing value beyond an immediate and minor transaction or the preparation of a subsequent record.…
“Transitory records are either copies of information retained elsewhere or records that will not be required as evidence of government’s business activities.”
Straightforward, right? The legislation explains what sort of records should be preserved and what kind can be destroyed.
So I ask you, readers, in what realm of the cosmos would an email and letter be considered transitory if they were from a deputy minister directing the CEO of The Rooms to revoke the contract of someone he had just hired as marketing director?
The email in question was sent in 2018 by Tourism and Culture deputy minister Ted Lomond to Rooms CEO Dean Brinton. It included a letter that was supposed to look like it had come from Brinton, but was on Government of Newfoundland and Labrador letterhead, rather than Rooms letterhead, with space left for Brinton’s signature.
The correspondence is detailed in the Mitchelmore Report, part of the evidence collected by the citizens’ representative during his investigation after a whistleblower complained of irregularities in the appointment of former Liberal communications director Carla Foote to a newly created executive-level position at The Rooms.
Lomond told the citizens’ rep he had encouraged Brinton to delete any transitory records he had kept about the issue, but not anything else.
“…You knew this was going to get ATIPP’d…,” Lomond said, “so I would like to have my records neat and tidy, final versions lined up.”
If politicians and public servants are directing people to destroy records, it means they’ve forgotten who they’re working for.
Brinton’s executive assistant (EA) recalls things differently.
She said she was directed to see that the correspondence Lomond had sent to Brinton was deleted.
She says on June 15, 2018 she got a call from Lomond’s EA telling her to delete both the email and the letter.
According to the Mitchelmore Report, she was clear “that this was not a general recommendation to delete transitory records, but was rather a specific instruction from the minister’s office.” (There is no evidence that the order came from Minister Christopher Mitchelmore himself.)
Later that day, she says, Lomond’s EA called again to ask if the letter had been delivered to the marketing director — cancelling the person’s contract — and whether Lomond’s correspondence to Brinton had been deleted.
Brinton’s EA says she could hear Lomond in the background, telling his assistant to demand that all records related to the rescinding of the contract be destroyed.
Thankfully for the public record, she didn’t comply.
The woman whose contract was rescinded has made a claim for damages.
Premier Dwight Ball himself has dismissed the correspondence as “transitory” records in the House of Assembly.
When asked by PC MHA Helen Conway-Ottenheimer on Dec. 3 if instructing employees to destroy evidence is a common practice in his government, the premier responded with a rambling answer that sounded like he was channelling Kathy Dunderdale during those heady days of Muskrat Falls debate.
“What I do know is that transitory records, access to information — I will say this, Mr. Speaker, that this government has more information out to the people of this province than any other government,” Ball said. “I can assure you of that by many, many times.”
Ball knows full well that the sheer quantity of information generated by government means nothing.
What does matter is that proper records are kept of politicians’ and civil servants’ actions and decision-making processes. It’s called accountability.
If politicians and public servants are directing people to destroy records, it means they’ve forgotten who they’re working for. These are decisions — to cancel legitimate employment contracts, create positions for partisans, inflate salaries — that people of the province have a right to know about.
And politicians and public servants who see access to information legislation as something they have to skirt around should ask themselves just exactly why that is.
Pam Frampton is The Telegram’s managing editor. Email [email protected]. Twitter: pam_frampton
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