8O Are we going to allow Klein and his cronies to continue trying to pull the wool over our eyes? Please send emails, snail mail, or phone your MLAs to protest the use of neutral bureaucrats to bolster Klein’s nefarious plans to neuter our freedom to associate! Do not lay down and allow these corporation puppets to destroy our freedom to associate! React now and not when it is too late.
Charles Rusnell, The Edmonton Journal on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 reported:
In a ruling released Tuesday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Denny Thomas dismissed an application which could have deprived the province's health-care unions from using internal labour relations board e-mails. The unions consider the e-mails to be the "smoking gun" they need to prove in court their long-held contention that the LRB is biased and works with the government against them.
The e-mails, obtained last week by The Journal, suggest the LRB collaborated with Ralph Klein's government and health-care employers to produce Bill 27. That legislation reduced the number of bargaining units to 36 from 400, pitting unions against each other in divisive run-off votes. It also stripped severance pay and the right to strike from thousands of workers.
The controversial e-mails were among several hundred documents that were the subject of an inquiry by the office of the province's freedom of information and privacy commissioner. But the commissioner's office, apparently inadvertently, attached the e-mails to correspondence it sent to the Alberta Federation of Labour. By the time the commissioner's office realized its mistake, the e-mails had been sent to 350 union local presidents.
When excerpts from the documents were published in The Journal, the province's unions, and both opposition parties, called for a public inquiry and the resignation of several senior labour board officials.
Freedom of Information Commissioner Frank Work responded by asking the court to grant an injunction making the e-mails privileged and confidential documents. That would have meant they couldn't be used in a court case. He also asked that the AFL be forced to provide a list of all organizations and individuals that received the e-mails so they could be retrieved or destroyed.
Work's lawyer, Richard Drewry, argued that if the injunction wasn't granted, there would be irreparable harm to the commissioner's office. He also argued the LRB would be denied a fair inquiry.
But Thomas rejected Drewry's arguments and accepted those put forward by AFL lawyer Dan Scott, who argued there was nothing in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that would render the e-mails privileged or confidential. Thomas agreed.
"It appears there is a gap in the act as to the legal status of the documents in the hands of the commissioner and I am not prepared to fill it by creating a new form of statutory privilege," Thomas wrote. "That is the job for the Alberta legislature."
Scott also argued that if any harm was caused by the public release of the e-mails, it had already been done.
Thomas noted the contents of the e-mails had been extensively quoted in The Journal and given that broad dissemination, he said an injunction should not be granted when it is "completely futile." Thomas also agreed with Scott that there was no evidence of irreparable harm either to the commissioner's office or to the commissioner's ability to independently adjudicate the inquiry involving the labour relations board and the AFL.
Charles Rusnell, The Edmonton Journal on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 reported:
In a ruling released Tuesday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Denny Thomas dismissed an application which could have deprived the province's health-care unions from using internal labour relations board e-mails. The unions consider the e-mails to be the "smoking gun" they need to prove in court their long-held contention that the LRB is biased and works with the government against them.
The e-mails, obtained last week by The Journal, suggest the LRB collaborated with Ralph Klein's government and health-care employers to produce Bill 27. That legislation reduced the number of bargaining units to 36 from 400, pitting unions against each other in divisive run-off votes. It also stripped severance pay and the right to strike from thousands of workers.
The controversial e-mails were among several hundred documents that were the subject of an inquiry by the office of the province's freedom of information and privacy commissioner. But the commissioner's office, apparently inadvertently, attached the e-mails to correspondence it sent to the Alberta Federation of Labour. By the time the commissioner's office realized its mistake, the e-mails had been sent to 350 union local presidents.
When excerpts from the documents were published in The Journal, the province's unions, and both opposition parties, called for a public inquiry and the resignation of several senior labour board officials.
Freedom of Information Commissioner Frank Work responded by asking the court to grant an injunction making the e-mails privileged and confidential documents. That would have meant they couldn't be used in a court case. He also asked that the AFL be forced to provide a list of all organizations and individuals that received the e-mails so they could be retrieved or destroyed.
Work's lawyer, Richard Drewry, argued that if the injunction wasn't granted, there would be irreparable harm to the commissioner's office. He also argued the LRB would be denied a fair inquiry.
But Thomas rejected Drewry's arguments and accepted those put forward by AFL lawyer Dan Scott, who argued there was nothing in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that would render the e-mails privileged or confidential. Thomas agreed.
"It appears there is a gap in the act as to the legal status of the documents in the hands of the commissioner and I am not prepared to fill it by creating a new form of statutory privilege," Thomas wrote. "That is the job for the Alberta legislature."
Scott also argued that if any harm was caused by the public release of the e-mails, it had already been done.
Thomas noted the contents of the e-mails had been extensively quoted in The Journal and given that broad dissemination, he said an injunction should not be granted when it is "completely futile." Thomas also agreed with Scott that there was no evidence of irreparable harm either to the commissioner's office or to the commissioner's ability to independently adjudicate the inquiry involving the labour relations board and the AFL.
