Former Tory MLA sues over information request

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This article was published 28/12/2022 (1128 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steven Fletcher, a former Progressive Conservative MLA, MP and failed People’s Party of Canada candidate, is taking Manitoba’s top civil servant to court for allegedly withholding information about him.

The statement of claim, which was filed in Court of King’s Bench on Dec. 5, names Don Leitch, clerk of the executive council, and Jill Perron, the provincial ombudsman.

Fletcher’s lawsuit is an attempt to obtain executive council records relating to him or his role as MLA for Assiniboia from 2016 to 2019. He made the request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) in 2019 and paid the requested $1,200 fee.

Fletcher, who was turfed from the PC caucus by former premier Brian Pallister in 2017 for not toeing the party line, wants the court to order the executive council to provide the information or issue a report explaining why it won’t.

“I’d like to know what these guys were doing in regards to me,” Fletcher told the Free Press Wednesday. He says he’s writing a book and trying to get to the bottom of his 2017 ouster from the PC caucus.

At that time, Fort Richmond MLA Sarah Guillemard, speaking on behalf of the PC caucus, said Fletcher had violated caucus principles such as respecting confidentiality and supporting the party platform.

After Fletcher ran unsuccessfully for the People’s Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election, he filed the FIPPA request to find out what was being said about him by the provincial executive council — the cabinet — when he was an MLA.

Despite paying the $1,200 fee that had been requested, several months passed and he still hadn’t received a decision regarding his access to information request, so Fletcher complained to the ombudsman, who has broad investigative, auditing and reporting powers under FIPPA.

In 2020, the ombudsman got involved by demanding answers from the executive council about Fletcher’s request.

“The executive council blew past any statutory deadlines and refused to co-operate with the ombudsman,” Fletcher said Wednesday.

“I filed an application at the Court of King’s Bench against the ombudsman and executive council because what else could I do? Nothing was happening for years.”

Under legislation, a person who has been refused access to a requested record or part of a record may appeal the decision to the court.

The ombudsman issued a 10-page report days after Fletcher filed his statement of claim.

It “found instances, in our review of the records and representation, where (the executive council) did not demonstrate how the withheld information met all the requirements outlined in the cited exceptions to disclosure; instances where we did not believe the public body was justified in applying the cited exceptions to disclosure; and instances where, with severing, some of the information could be released.”

Fletcher’s statement of claim asks the court to confirm that no information was destroyed. It asks that a judge consider ordering the executive council to release the information. He wants the information he requested to be provided as soon as possible and the $1,200 search fee refunded.

He’s asked for court costs to be covered and for an apology from the executive council.

Leitch, who was not clerk of the executive council when Fletcher was an MLA, and Perron, filed motions asking the court to strike down the statement of claim against them.

Perron’s court filing cites the Ombudsman Act that says no action can be taken against her in her role as ombudsman unless it can be shown she acted in bad faith.

Their motions are to be heard by a court master on Jan. 26.

A government spokesman declined to comment, saying the matter is before the court.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca