In a ruling one lawyer called potentially explosive, A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered Premier Gordon Campbell and former finance minister Gary Collins to produce emails linked to the 2003 sale of Crown-owned BC Rail -- almost six years after a police raid on the province's legislature.
Justice Elizabeth Bennett said Monday the premier, his senior staff and several former high-profile cabinet ministers must forward emails linked to the $1-billion privatization sale that sparked corruption allegations and an ongoing court battle.
It's not clear whether most of the emails still exist. Bennett heard last week a private firm contracted by the government was ordered to destroy them last May.
The unprecedented ruling also includes emails former transportation ministers Judith Reid and Shirley Bond, former deputy premier Christy Clark, then energy minister Richard Neufeld. It covers emails sent between Jan. 2002 and Dec. 31, 2004.
The Dec. 28, 2003, police raid targeted the offices of Dave Basi, an aide to Collins, and Bobby Virk, who worked for Reid.
Basi and Virk face charges of fraud and breach of trust related to the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail in November 2003.
It's alleged they provided confidential government documents to lobbyists representing Denver, Colo.-based OmniTRAX, which was part of the bidding process, in exchange for gifts and promises of federal government jobs and with the help of communications worker Aneal Basi, Dave Basi's cousin.
Lawyer Michael Bolton, who represents Dave Basi, said the ruling is unprecedented and potentially explosive.
"These are critical documents that are necessary to the right of our clients to answer these charges and they must, in our view, be produced in order to have a fair trial," Bolton said outside court.
"We know, for example, that at least one of the people in the premier's office had thousands of emails pertaining to BC Rail."
"The critical stuff is we've never got emails from the cabinet and now we've got an order to have those produced to the judge."
Defence lawyers say they need the documents to argue that Basi and Virk acted under the direction of their political masters and that any information that fell into the hands of lobbyists in Victoria came from people other than their clients.
But court heard last month that all cabinet emails between 2001 and 2005 could have been erased in May, when the Liberal government was re-elected to its third term, touching off speculation about who would have ordered their destruction and why.
"The destruction of evidence, whether by recklessness, negligence or a wilful failure to preserve could be a very significant factor to the outcome of this case and it potentially could lead to a motion for abuse of process," Bennett said.
"Ultimately, the cabinet ministers that Mr. Virk and Mr. Basi worked for are slated to be witnesses in their trial so these emails are very important for trial purposes."
Bennett said the material is likely relevant and she wants it by Aug. 17, after which she will review it before deciding whether it is connected to the case.
Leonard Krog, the Opposition NDP's critic for the Attorney General's Ministry, said the judge's ruling has cast a broad net among former cabinet ministers and other high-ranking officials.
"I think even the premier of British Columbia has to be accountable to the courts when there are accused people before the courts and relevant evidence is apparently available," he said.
"If this government had co-operated earlier it wouldn't look so bad as it does now," he said. "The fact is they should have co-operated. It was the right, moral, legally correct thing to do and they haven't done so to date."
Krog has called for a public inquiry into the supposed destruction of the emails, saying a provincial statute calls for electronic records must be kept for at least 10 years.
Virk's lawyer, Kevin McCullough told court last month that the RCMP failed to obtain emails connected to its raid of the legislature even after former deputy finance minister Dave Morhart said in a statement that he'd saved about 2,000 of them.
McCullough said that suggests the Mounties targeted Virk and Basi from the beginning.
Morhart is among the officials whose emails Bennett requested Monday. The judge also said police did not seek emails from Collins, the former finance minister, during their investigation of the BC Rail deal.
