Graham Steele and I had a further email exchange. I suggested he had not answered the question at the heart of my original query: Why didn't you (or, if you wish, why didn't [Cabinet Clerk Greg] Keefe) simply waive solicitor client privilege in these cases? [caption id="attachment_5552" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Canny Mandarins"][/caption] I added: A second question that I didn't ask, but which still hovers over this: Is this a sign that the NDP government, with its very small cabinet, is falling prey to a classic malady of new governments, especially new governments whose ministers have no experience in government: that of being unduly led...

04 June, 2010

At first blush, Auditor General Jacques Lapointe's refusal to issue an audit opinion on the province's two largest business loan funds looks like another in the lengthening string of Dexter Government screw-ups. This is the NDP, for heaven's sake, perennial champions of openness and accountability, withholding 281 documents and redacting a further 32 on grounds of cabinet confidentiality and solicitor-client privilege, thereby thwarting independent scrutiny of the corporate welfare trough they once scorned. Solicitor-client privilege protects communications between a lawyer and a client from being disclosed without the permission of the client. It binds the lawyer, not the client. In the...

04 June, 2010