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Judge will be given all documents used in privacy commissioner's PNP privacy decision

Alan Parish Guardian photo

Alan Parish

Doug Gallant
Published on January 6, 2011
Published on January 6, 2011
Doug Gallant  RSS Feed
Topics :
CBC , Supreme Court , Island Investment Development

The Supreme Court judge conducting a judicial review of a decision by the province's former privacy commissioner to deny CBC access to the names of companies that received PNP money will have access to all documents that commissioner had when she made her decision.

Supreme Court Judge Wayne Cheverie ordered Thursday that all documents Judith Haldemann had when she reached her decision will be included in the record filed with the presiding judge.

But none of the documents to be filed with the court will contain the names of any companies that received funding or any information that someone could use to identify those companies.

Cheverie had been asked ultimately to determine what documents could be filed as part of the record for the judicial review and what information those documents could contain.

The privacy commissioner, Maria C. MacDonald, had filed a motion to seal a portion of the record to be filed with the court for the judicial review until otherwise ordered by the court.

Cheverie rejected the motion to seal any of the documents in that record.

"If they are unable to resolve the issue, then it will be resolved by the court." - Supreme Court Judge Wayne Cheverie

But he ordered that all documents filed by the commissioner with the court for that review be purged of all third party names.

All identifying information which could lead to the identification of a third party is to be purged.

"This exercise includes examination and redaction of all submissions or representations made to the privacy commissioner," Cheverie's order stated.

Cheverie has given the privacy commissioner and her legal counsel, Douglas Drysdale, 90 days to complete the redaction process.

When that process has been completed the commissioner will forward all redacted documents to Island Investment Development Inc., the corporation which has the responsibility for administering the PNP program, for their review.

Island Investment Development Inc. will then have 30 days from its receipt of the redacted documents to complete its review.

"If Island Investment is content with the redacted documents presented to it, then that portion of the record is settled," Cheverie stated.

 

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Comments

  • Username
    Observer
    - January 8, 2011 at 12:47:53

    The Liberal argument that not taxpayer money was involved is simply wrong but firstly and most importantly, citizens do not elect a government to run quasi legal immigration schemes for the benefit of the friends of government. Nor do they expect that our MLAs some advisors to the sitting government would be the primary benefactors. Equally important and more sinister is the fact that he program was kept under wraps , unavailable to the general public. Most applicants were invited to participate and had no interest or notion of abiding by the program requirements in the first place. As for taxpayers money, well,who pays the salary of those involved, who owns the buildings from which the program was administered, who payed for the travel and overtime to recruit immigrants?? Who payed for the lawyers to protect the interests of the government? Was it not the taxpayer? Enough about it not being taxpayers money. It certainly was...and it was also the taxpayers faith that was lost in this government as well. The PNP illustrates how morally corrupt some politicians have become. The very people who were elected to provide the public with a responsible government have abdicated their fiduciary responsibility.

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  • Username
    just kidding
    - January 8, 2011 at 11:24:50

    hey BRUCIE,if no taxpayers dollars were used in the pnp debockery then who paid the people to process these claims,and who paid the extra overtime to process these claims at an alarming rate so they could be put through in time????????

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  • Username
    bruce mac isaac
    - January 7, 2011 at 16:13:57

    I must say that some of the comments might have made some sense if the facts are there for those who wrote in would use them. If any of those who wrote in could read you would, find out that Judge Cheverie , is a Supreme Court Judge . So the case that this should be heard by a Supreme Court has been done. The court clearly states that this is a private agreement , so no names will be released . I think that the most important fact that should be pointed out is that, there were no taxpayers dollars , involved, in PNP. So I do hope that I cleared up some of the confusion for all of these Tory bloggers. so that you won't spend the weekend in the dark ,as you seemed to have been since this program came out in the first place.

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  • Username
    Peter Arnold
    - January 7, 2011 at 14:57:11

    To Observer: The provincial supreme court is the correct forum for such a dispute to be resolved. The federal courts in Canada are non-s.96 courts (see Canadian Constitution) and thus they are not courts of "inherent jurisdiction". The federal courts in Canada only have jurisdiction to decide on disputes on subject matters that are specifically delegated to them (and meet other criteria). Note that this is quite different than in the United States.

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  • Username
    Bill
    - January 7, 2011 at 14:29:59

    I agree with "observer" this should be looked into by Federal authorities, it was a Federal program that the Provincial government abused; why would they not want to take over the inquiry and shed some light into this. That way, there would be no provincially influenced investigations.

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  • Username
    HoratioAlger
    - January 7, 2011 at 13:59:52

    Please get someone on this case that can at least write in semi-correct English. As for the Cheverie hearing. Birds of a feather flock together. Nothing will come of Cheverie, except another coat of whitewash. How could it? His only qualification is: Liberal cabinet Minister in Ghiz the Elders government. What a rotten little berg we have become. May as well change the name of the place to Homburg and get it over with!!!!

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  • Username
    sickofpnp
    - January 7, 2011 at 11:40:46

    and so what if the general public finds out the names of the companies who received pnp $$ what then ????? - so we can all complain and squawk as usual. let's move on.

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  • Username
    Bill
    - January 7, 2011 at 10:48:17

    I am about 99.9% sure that the Liberals aren't so worried about any potential damage to the companies that received PNP funds, and are more worried about the potential damage caused to the Liberal government when all of this comes out. It is my hope that the judicial system does what is correct and ethical and not what is coerced. I also hope that when this comes out, charges will be laid for conflict of interest for those that are in control of the program, as well as tax evasion for the cash bonuses these directors received when they were collecting applications. I thought the Liberals were going to bring transparency into the house, not conspiracy. And they were supposed to do away with the political patronage, but we never hear anything more of the blatant placement of government funded employees. We need somebody in there to blow the top off of this and bring everything into light before the election, so everybody can have all of the information before they make their next voting decision.

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  • Username
    M Butler
    - January 7, 2011 at 10:26:12

    This whole protecting certain people and businesses in this PNP scandal is ridiculous!!! The government done something they shouldn't have done, they stole money from the PNP program and kept it for themselves or gave too much money to businesses that their friends owned.....we need to get to the bottom of this and stop protecting these crooks from the public. Everybody involved in this wrong-doing needs to be made public. The businesses that got several units of PNP money know they done wrong and the politicians know they done wrong too. When a regular person does something wrong, the courts punish them.....so how come the same doesn't apply to the government and these businesses??? They are basically showing that the law doesn't apply to certain people.....and thats just plain wrong!!! The government should never be above the law....EVER. The right thing needs to be done in this case. Uncover all information and all names involved in this mess so everybody can move on.

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  • Username
    Joe Blow
    - January 7, 2011 at 10:18:23

    This is a joke and it is not going to accomplish anything for the public. The government mishandled $500 million dollars!!! They wrongly gave money to politicians and companies of polticians friends and now they are all hiding the information from the public, who has a right to know. The corrupt Ghiz government needs to be uncovered and exposed NOW!!! You can't keep doing these wrongful things at the expense of the taxpaying public. The companies that got PNP money in a correct manner should all make themselves publicly known and point out that they got their money the right way and there was no wrong-doing.....then the rest of the companies and politicians that got money they didn't deserve can be made public and the Ghiz government can be removed from PEI government. What a bunch of crooks!!! Is it any wonder why most people hate the government and everything they do.....they are a bunch of lying theives.

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  • Username
    News Writer
    - January 7, 2011 at 09:17:14

    That is the worst lead paragraph I have ever read. It makes no grammatical sense and it is terribly unclear. Do you guys even edit this stuff?

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    • Username
      In Agreement
      - January 7, 2011 at 15:55:59

      I have to agree. Very poorly structured with absolutely no punctuation to break up the sentence. Pick it up!

    • Username
      Jocelyne Lloyd
      - January 7, 2011 at 16:08:52

      We do edit this stuff, hard as that is to believe sometimes. Anyway, you're both right, the first sentence as it appeared on the website did not make sense. Must've been a cutting-and-pasting issue, as it wasn't the same as in the print edition of The Guardian. I've pulled out that paragraph and replaced it. Although still convoluted, it's at least grammatical now. Thanks for the head's up. Jocelyne Lloyd, web editor

  • Username
    Milton Steed
    - January 7, 2011 at 09:16:32

    I am truly disappointed in the new privacy and access to info commissioner Maria MacDonald. Look at what she is doing- The privacy commissioner, Maria C. MacDonald, had filed a motion to seal a portion of the record to be filed with the court for the judicial review until otherwise ordered by the court.She is behaving no better than Haldemann. When Ghiz is kicked out ( and I hope and pray it is in 2011 and not later) then we will need many laws to be strengthened. As it is know supposedly independent officials and be used for the political purposes of the ruling power.Olive Crane is talking considerable change in accountability measures and for that reason she has my full support. We can't afford to lose opportunities like PNP because of the greed of the few and PEI cannot afford to be seen this way any longer. The man to blame for all of this is Robert Ghiz. Kudos to the CBC and strong encouragement to the Guardian to do some proper editorial work on PNP. Don't wait for the national media to embarrass you with your lack of vigilance. As it is the CBC is making you look pretty bad, Guardian.You are the odd man out on PNP.

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  • Username
    Observer
    - January 7, 2011 at 08:17:55

    PNP is Federally mandated program, and any wrongdoing must be addressed by a Federal court, not Provincial investigation.

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  • Username
    VOTER
    - January 7, 2011 at 06:48:13

    Cheverie probably had a lot of say in the Liberal process since being gifted his present position by the liberal party ----Remember his input to "HELP" islanders(especially one named Wayne) in the 1990's Talk about an "insider" !!!!

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  • Username
    kawi
    - January 7, 2011 at 06:21:46

    Cheverie sounds like a good Liberal name. Cant see this doing anything but adding to the cost of the pnp scandal. They will spend millons fighting the release of names as most are there friends and a looming election.

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  • Username
    Heather
    - January 6, 2011 at 22:04:13

    All legitimate businesses that filed a legitimate application, before a legitimate deadline, for legitimate business purposes, and have filed legitimate mandatory reports, should identify themselves publicly at this point. That way we could set those cases aside and deal only with the ones who continue to insist on hiding.

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  • Username
    just kidding
    - January 6, 2011 at 21:51:03

    wayne cheverie,are you kidding me???wasn't he a big liberal at one time under the old guiz government? would it not be a conflict of interest at some level?this will just be another swept under the rug attempt at getting to the bottom of this whole fiasco.please, oh please will somebody get to the bottom of this.

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  • Username
    Heather
    - January 6, 2011 at 21:29:53

    All legitimate businesses that filed a legitimate application, before a legitimate deadline, for legitimate business purposes, and have filed legitimate mandatory reports, should identify themselves publicly at this point. That way we could set those cases aside and deal only with the ones who continue to insist on hiding.

    Submit a comment

  • Username
    Heather
    - January 6, 2011 at 21:12:19

    All legitimate businesses that filed a legitimate application, before a legitimate deadline, for legitimate business purposes, and have filed legitimate mandatory reports, should identify themselves publicly at this point. That way we could set those cases aside and deal only with the ones who continue to insist on hiding.

    Submit a comment

  • Username
    Observer
    - January 6, 2011 at 21:11:52

    If Island Investment is content???? Whether or not Island Investment is content is irrelevant. This government has mismanaged $525 million dollars. The PNP will be remembered as an ill conceived, politically manipulated immigration program turned into an investment scheme by unscrupulous politicians and their opportunistic and greedy counsellors. The whole of he political and judicial systems seem intent upon keeping the general public in the dark. Shameful!!

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  • Username
    blackie lund
    - January 6, 2011 at 20:49:24

    The odds of a PEI Judge ruling against the Gov't in this PNP scandel are so slim...lol But of all the Judges maybe Wayne can do the right thing?

    Submit a comment

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