Disappearing websites, suppression of information

On June 22nd, Attorney General Geoff Plant fired Inquiry Commissioner Smith saying "The cost of the commission to date is about $6 million, and another $2 million could well be spent by year’s end, including publicly funded legal fees for some of the people who received notices of adverse findings from the commission." That action prevented the Commissioner from issuing a report that may have shed some light on the attacks leveled on several people's reputations over the previous decade. It also set a precedent for inference in a quasi-judicial process - not surprising in retrospect having since seen the government interfere with the WCB and turn a promised public inquiry for the fast ferries into a private consultant's investigation.

At the time the Smith Inquiry was shut down, the Attorney General said all of the information one could gather was already on the record and that information is available on the Internet. His news release concluded "The full text of the commission’s proceedings can be found at http://www.smithinquiry.com on the Internet."

In the week that the government reneged on its promise to launch a public inquiry into the fast ferries, the website for Commissioner Smith (http://www.smithinquiry.com/) delivered the strange message "Forbidden - You don't have permission to access / on this server."

Getting information out of the Campbell government sets new standards for openness - new low standards.