Ask Brigette DePape if she has surprised people with her bold protest in the Senate and she’ll say it depends on who you ask.
Her friends probably saw it coming. But DePape’s grandmother wouldn’t expect her granddaughter to smuggle a handmade stop sign emblazoned with the words “Stop Harper!” into Friday’s throne speech, DePape said.
The 21-year-old was escorted from the Senate chamber, and quickly fired from her coveted job as a parliamentary page.
The University of Ottawa graduate spoke with her family in Winnipeg Friday night on the phone. Her mother, Marcelle, is proud of her, DePape said.
“It was really good to hear some encouragement from a really important woman in my life,” she said.
DePape’s father was less positive.
“My dad was quite critical of it. He sort of asked what concrete changes can this actually have,” she said.
Her family, like DePape herself, is non-partisan — more focused on the issues than a specific party, she said.
“I do think the act of one person can’t make a difference but I can’t wait for when the resistance continues to build and to show my dad that social movements actually are an effective means for pressuring government and initiate changes that we need to happen.”
DePape, the youngest of three daughters, comes from a politically-savvy family. She remembers reading the newspaper and watching the news together from the time she was very young.
Denis DePape first heard about his daughter’s protest when a relative called him.
“It was unexpected. We didn’t know about it in advance,” he said.
But Brigette is very passionate about the state of the world and what she thinks the world should be like, he said.
“She is often looking for ways to express her caring and her interest, her desire to see improvement,” he said.
The family is very active in community activities and non-governmental organizations, he said, and they encourage their children to travel and expand their boundaries.
DePape said she hatched the protest idea with some friends. The challenging part was figuring out how to fold the sign under her skirt to get it into the chamber, she said.
Since DePape’s protest, her Facebook account has been inundated with friend requests. Her future is up in the air, but she took that into consideration before she walked into the Senate chamber with that sign, she said.
“The future is a blank canvas right now,” she said. “I’m definitely looking at connecting with existing social movements to really help there with this resistance and to create a better community and Canada for everyone.”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Brigette Marcelle, a 21 A Senate page who was fired Friday for holding a "Stop Harper" sign during the government's throne speech says she hopes to inspire more cases of "civil disobedience." .
A Senate page who was fired Friday for holding a "Stop Harper" sign during the government's throne speech says she hopes to inspire more cases of "civil disobedience."
Brigette Marcelle, a 21-year-old graduate from the University of Ottawa, said that she only recently decided to put her job on the line and stage the silent protest.
Though she was immediately fired from the sought-after position, Marcelle said she doesn't regret upstaging the government on its coming out day in Ottawa.
In fact, Marcelle, who is also a theatre performer, called on people across the country to stage Canada's own version of the "Arab Spring" and stand up to the recently-elected Conservative majority government.
"This is the only way we're going to see real change," Marcelle told CTV News Channel, as she conceded that Harper's majority government will hold parliamentary sway for the next four years.
Marcelle managed to hold her sign up for about 20 seconds, and stood steps from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She was quickly escorted out of the chamber and immediately fired.
Despite the protest, Gov. Gen. David Johnson didn't stop reading and the speech was not interrupted. The Conservative speech borrows heavily from the government's campaign platform, and it promises to keep the economy as the chief focus over the next year.
However, the speech also promises to get rid of the long-gun registry and break up the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Marcelle had served in the Senate as a page for nearly a year, but she decided to take action a few days ago because she said Harper doesn't reflect the majority of Canadians.
"Harper's agenda is disastrous for this country and for my generation," Marcelle said.
She added that the government is "blowing billions of dollars" on fighter jets and corporate tax cuts, but ignoring important environmental issues like climate change.
But since Harper recently won a majority, Marcelle said that staging "creative" protests is the only way to fight back.
"I think that Harper's agenda is so damaging that it called for something that is different," she said. "I think we really need to take action."
Marcelle, who also uses the last name DePape, performed a self-penned, one-woman show called "She Rules with Iron Stix" onstage in Ottawa last year at TEDxYouthOttawa.
You can watch the performance below.
Brigette Marcelle, a 21-year-old graduate from the University of Ottawa, said that she only recently decided to put her job on the line and stage the silent protest.
Though she was immediately fired from the sought-after position, Marcelle said she doesn't regret upstaging the government on its coming out day in Ottawa.
In fact, Marcelle, who is also a theatre performer, called on people across the country to stage Canada's own version of the "Arab Spring" and stand up to the recently-elected Conservative majority government.
"This is the only way we're going to see real change," Marcelle told CTV News Channel, as she conceded that Harper's majority government will hold parliamentary sway for the next four years.
Marcelle managed to hold her sign up for about 20 seconds, and stood steps from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She was quickly escorted out of the chamber and immediately fired.
Despite the protest, Gov. Gen. David Johnson didn't stop reading and the speech was not interrupted. The Conservative speech borrows heavily from the government's campaign platform, and it promises to keep the economy as the chief focus over the next year.
However, the speech also promises to get rid of the long-gun registry and break up the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board.
Marcelle had served in the Senate as a page for nearly a year, but she decided to take action a few days ago because she said Harper doesn't reflect the majority of Canadians.
"Harper's agenda is disastrous for this country and for my generation," Marcelle said.
She added that the government is "blowing billions of dollars" on fighter jets and corporate tax cuts, but ignoring important environmental issues like climate change.
But since Harper recently won a majority, Marcelle said that staging "creative" protests is the only way to fight back.
"I think that Harper's agenda is so damaging that it called for something that is different," she said. "I think we really need to take action."
Marcelle, who also uses the last name DePape, performed a self-penned, one-woman show called "She Rules with Iron Stix" onstage in Ottawa last year at TEDxYouthOttawa.
You can watch the performance below.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Hackers who attacked two of Canada's federal departments stole classified information before being discovered last January, CBC News has learned. : The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.
Hackers who attacked two of Canada's federal departments stole classified information before being discovered last January, CBC News has learned.
The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.
Six months ago, hackers launched an unprecedented cyber attack on the federal government. In January, the government's computer system came under attack.
Hackers sent malicious emails to staff that appeared to be coming from senior managers. When staff opened the attachments, hackers found a path into the federal network, providing access to classified information.
"Indications are that data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised," said a memo written Jan. 31, 2011.
Former Treasury Board president Stockwell Day said he was never told that any classified information was stolen from government computers.
"Certainly, on the information that I got, I had full confidence that the systems had moved quickly to shut down, that significant information had not in fact been carried away, and that the ongoing assessment of that by the technicians continues," he told CBC News on Thursday.
Chronology of a cyber attack
April 2010 — Citizen Lab and SecDev Group discover government computers in 103 countries compromised by an attack originating from servers in China. Publish report called Shadows in the Cloud.
Fall 2010 — Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the country's only electronic eavesdropping agency, went hunting for signs federal government networks had been compromised.
January 2011 — Hack discovered at Department of Finance, Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada, an agency of the Department of National Defence. Departments compromised the same way GhostNet worked.
Feb. 16, 2011 — CBC News reports the cyber attack.
Feb. 17, 2011 — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says government has a strategy to protect computer networks but admits cybersecurity is "a growing issue of importance."
June 2, 2011 — CBC News reports a memo obtained through Access to Information confirms hackers stole classified information.
Day said up until he retired as minister, he was told the information was safe.
"All the information that I had been getting, up until the point when I was no longer minister, the folders were protected. The walls had been breached, but it looked like the folders were protected, and now comes the painstaking work of seeing if in fact everything was maintained."
Day didn't run for re-election May 2 but was considered minister until the new minister, Tony Clement, was sworn in on May 18.
Today, the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board are still limiting internet access to their workers. Employees take laptops to Ottawa coffee shops, or work from home.
The departments now have separate computer stations on each floor — systems that are not part of the government's computer network.
That's where workers can go to access websites they need for research and policy work. If those computers are taken, people do their surfing at a coffee shop.
CBC News contacted all the departments involved, including Public Safety, and none had any further comment. Access documents show the communications response to the cyber attack has been carefully monitored and scripted.
Former auditor general Sheila Fraser raised alarms in 2002, saying that cybersecurity was not up to snuff and warned about "weaknesses in the system."
She urged an overhaul to deal with the vulnerabilities, but found not much had changed when she checked again three years later.
In May, 2010, a top secret memo from CSIS, Canada's spy agency, warned that cyber-attacks on government, university and industry computers had been growing "substantially."
The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.
Six months ago, hackers launched an unprecedented cyber attack on the federal government. In January, the government's computer system came under attack.
Hackers sent malicious emails to staff that appeared to be coming from senior managers. When staff opened the attachments, hackers found a path into the federal network, providing access to classified information.
"Indications are that data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised," said a memo written Jan. 31, 2011.
Former Treasury Board president Stockwell Day said he was never told that any classified information was stolen from government computers.
"Certainly, on the information that I got, I had full confidence that the systems had moved quickly to shut down, that significant information had not in fact been carried away, and that the ongoing assessment of that by the technicians continues," he told CBC News on Thursday.
Chronology of a cyber attack
April 2010 — Citizen Lab and SecDev Group discover government computers in 103 countries compromised by an attack originating from servers in China. Publish report called Shadows in the Cloud.
Fall 2010 — Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the country's only electronic eavesdropping agency, went hunting for signs federal government networks had been compromised.
January 2011 — Hack discovered at Department of Finance, Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada, an agency of the Department of National Defence. Departments compromised the same way GhostNet worked.
Feb. 16, 2011 — CBC News reports the cyber attack.
Feb. 17, 2011 — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says government has a strategy to protect computer networks but admits cybersecurity is "a growing issue of importance."
June 2, 2011 — CBC News reports a memo obtained through Access to Information confirms hackers stole classified information.
Day said up until he retired as minister, he was told the information was safe.
"All the information that I had been getting, up until the point when I was no longer minister, the folders were protected. The walls had been breached, but it looked like the folders were protected, and now comes the painstaking work of seeing if in fact everything was maintained."
Day didn't run for re-election May 2 but was considered minister until the new minister, Tony Clement, was sworn in on May 18.
Today, the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board are still limiting internet access to their workers. Employees take laptops to Ottawa coffee shops, or work from home.
The departments now have separate computer stations on each floor — systems that are not part of the government's computer network.
That's where workers can go to access websites they need for research and policy work. If those computers are taken, people do their surfing at a coffee shop.
CBC News contacted all the departments involved, including Public Safety, and none had any further comment. Access documents show the communications response to the cyber attack has been carefully monitored and scripted.
Former auditor general Sheila Fraser raised alarms in 2002, saying that cybersecurity was not up to snuff and warned about "weaknesses in the system."
She urged an overhaul to deal with the vulnerabilities, but found not much had changed when she checked again three years later.
In May, 2010, a top secret memo from CSIS, Canada's spy agency, warned that cyber-attacks on government, university and industry computers had been growing "substantially."
Thursday, June 2, 2011
The Quebec government has told a Montreal man that he cannot receive child-assistance benefits because his name appears on a United Nations terror watchlist... Abousfian Abdelrazik.
The Quebec government has told a Montreal man that he cannot receive child-assistance benefits because his name appears on a United Nations terror watchlist.
Abdelrazik spent six years in forced exile in Sudan, some of which was spent in prison where he says he was tortured.
A letter from the Quebec government furnished to The Canadian Press states that Abdelrazik cannot receive benefits for his two children as long his name appears on the UN list.
The letter advises him to get a certificate signed by the minister of foreign affairs stating he can collect child-care benefits.
Abdelrazik has been unsuccessful to have his name taken off the list, even though he's been formally cleared of the terrorist allegations by CSIS and the RCMP.
Being on the UN's blacklist means Abdelrazik can't leave Canada and all of his financial assets remain frozen.
But Abdelrazik says the money is for his children and they are being unfairly penalized.
Abdelrazik spent six years in forced exile in Sudan, some of which was spent in prison where he says he was tortured.
A letter from the Quebec government furnished to The Canadian Press states that Abdelrazik cannot receive benefits for his two children as long his name appears on the UN list.
The letter advises him to get a certificate signed by the minister of foreign affairs stating he can collect child-care benefits.
Abdelrazik has been unsuccessful to have his name taken off the list, even though he's been formally cleared of the terrorist allegations by CSIS and the RCMP.
Being on the UN's blacklist means Abdelrazik can't leave Canada and all of his financial assets remain frozen.
But Abdelrazik says the money is for his children and they are being unfairly penalized.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sweden signs a new international treaty to Address Damage that may Result from Living Modified Organisms ... Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
Sweden signs a new international treaty to Address Damage that may Result from Living Modified Organisms
At a ceremony held at UN in New York, the Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was opened for signature by Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Supplementary Protocol aims to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity by providing international rules and procedures for liability and redress in the event of damage resulting from living modified organisms (LMOs).
At a ceremony held at UN in New York, the Nagoya – Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was opened for signature by Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Supplementary Protocol aims to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity by providing international rules and procedures for liability and redress in the event of damage resulting from living modified organisms (LMOs).
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Out-of-town cops got millions for G20 work.
Ottawa riot cops who answered a midnight call and raced to make it to Toronto by Sunday morning each billed $2,079.99 for a single day’s work.
Three police officers from the tiny township of Stirling-Rawdon made more than $25,997.66 in overtime pay alone.
One Hamilton cop earned $31,590.27 in six weeks.
These are three examples of the premium payouts the RCMP made to out-of-town police officers to patrol last summer’s G8/G20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto.
The Mounties’ contracts with “partner” police agencies, obtained by the CBC through Freedom of Information laws and published Monday, detail how hundreds of police officers from outside the GTA drew lucrative contracts laden with overtime and vacation bonuses.
More than half the hours worked by out-of-town cops were paid at one-and-a-half or double-time rates.
All of the 278 Montreal police officers, for instance, were paid double-time for all their work during the summit, earning a total of $3,342,578, almost half the $7 million cost to hire 657 officers from 17 Canadian police forces.
“It’s as though no one was paying attention to the money,” said John Sewell, former Toronto mayor who heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition. “If any other public servant spent money this way, people would be beside themselves; but for some reason we don’t hold police to the same level of accountability as other civil servants.”
The RCMP say they had no choice but to compensate the officers as per their respective collective agreements, which were non-negotiable.
Spokeswoman Julie Gagnon said in an emailed statement the agency still came in $4 million under budget: The RCMP had forecast paying $11 million to “partners” for supplemental policing needs.
Gagnon said there was no cap on overtime expenses, all overtime hours had to be approved by supervisors and the RCMP “maximized efficiencies to minimize overtime.”
The Eastern Ontario township of Stirling-Rawdon, with a police force of only 10 officers, including police Chief Brian Foley, sent two sergeants and a constable to Toronto for about 10 days to police the summit.
Sgt. Colin Cook, Sgt. Jim Orr and Const. Trevor MacLean did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The RCMP paid the officers $38,048.96, two-thirds of which was overtime pay. One officer earned $11,419.46 in overtime and more than $14,000 in total.
Ottawa police Insp. Mark Ford was part of the team that raced along Highway 401 in the middle of the night after getting an emergency call from the RCMP for last-minute reinforcements after a chaotic day of rioting downtown.
All the officers were paid time and a half, Ford said, because they were called in on days off. He said the more than $2,000 paid to each officer was fair, because when you include travel time “the officers worked 37 hours straight.”
Roughly half the 10,000 police officers who patrolled the summits were from outside Toronto, with most coming from the RCMP or other forces within the GTA. About 2,000 had to be flown in, and all of them, including Toronto police officers who live outside the city, were put up in hotels such as the Hyatt, Marriott and Delta Chelsea, at a time when the hotels had inflated rates.
The Toronto Police Service’s own G20 costs were $124 million, which the police board has said ballooned because of the tight timeline to meet security demands. Security costs for the G8/G20 totaled at least $676 million.
High costs for out-of-town cops
• Five of the 16 Vancouver police officers sent to Toronto each made more than $9,000 for a week’s work.
• Eight Barrie police officers were hired on paid duty to patrol the Integrated Security Unit’s headquarters — where there was no protest activity — around-the-clock for 13 days. They each walked away with an average of $8,495.
• North Bay’s eight police officers were paid their overtime rate for more than three-quarters of their total hours, each earning an average of $5,742.70.
Three police officers from the tiny township of Stirling-Rawdon made more than $25,997.66 in overtime pay alone.
One Hamilton cop earned $31,590.27 in six weeks.
These are three examples of the premium payouts the RCMP made to out-of-town police officers to patrol last summer’s G8/G20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto.
The Mounties’ contracts with “partner” police agencies, obtained by the CBC through Freedom of Information laws and published Monday, detail how hundreds of police officers from outside the GTA drew lucrative contracts laden with overtime and vacation bonuses.
More than half the hours worked by out-of-town cops were paid at one-and-a-half or double-time rates.
All of the 278 Montreal police officers, for instance, were paid double-time for all their work during the summit, earning a total of $3,342,578, almost half the $7 million cost to hire 657 officers from 17 Canadian police forces.
“It’s as though no one was paying attention to the money,” said John Sewell, former Toronto mayor who heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition. “If any other public servant spent money this way, people would be beside themselves; but for some reason we don’t hold police to the same level of accountability as other civil servants.”
The RCMP say they had no choice but to compensate the officers as per their respective collective agreements, which were non-negotiable.
Spokeswoman Julie Gagnon said in an emailed statement the agency still came in $4 million under budget: The RCMP had forecast paying $11 million to “partners” for supplemental policing needs.
Gagnon said there was no cap on overtime expenses, all overtime hours had to be approved by supervisors and the RCMP “maximized efficiencies to minimize overtime.”
The Eastern Ontario township of Stirling-Rawdon, with a police force of only 10 officers, including police Chief Brian Foley, sent two sergeants and a constable to Toronto for about 10 days to police the summit.
Sgt. Colin Cook, Sgt. Jim Orr and Const. Trevor MacLean did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The RCMP paid the officers $38,048.96, two-thirds of which was overtime pay. One officer earned $11,419.46 in overtime and more than $14,000 in total.
Ottawa police Insp. Mark Ford was part of the team that raced along Highway 401 in the middle of the night after getting an emergency call from the RCMP for last-minute reinforcements after a chaotic day of rioting downtown.
All the officers were paid time and a half, Ford said, because they were called in on days off. He said the more than $2,000 paid to each officer was fair, because when you include travel time “the officers worked 37 hours straight.”
Roughly half the 10,000 police officers who patrolled the summits were from outside Toronto, with most coming from the RCMP or other forces within the GTA. About 2,000 had to be flown in, and all of them, including Toronto police officers who live outside the city, were put up in hotels such as the Hyatt, Marriott and Delta Chelsea, at a time when the hotels had inflated rates.
The Toronto Police Service’s own G20 costs were $124 million, which the police board has said ballooned because of the tight timeline to meet security demands. Security costs for the G8/G20 totaled at least $676 million.
High costs for out-of-town cops
• Five of the 16 Vancouver police officers sent to Toronto each made more than $9,000 for a week’s work.
• Eight Barrie police officers were hired on paid duty to patrol the Integrated Security Unit’s headquarters — where there was no protest activity — around-the-clock for 13 days. They each walked away with an average of $8,495.
• North Bay’s eight police officers were paid their overtime rate for more than three-quarters of their total hours, each earning an average of $5,742.70.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Dozens of pages from a decades-old intelligence file on socialist icon Tommy Douglas have mysteriously disappeared.
Dozens of pages from a decades-old intelligence file on socialist icon Tommy Douglas have mysteriously disappeared.
The disappearance came to light during a lengthy court battle over the federal government's refusal to fully disclose the RCMP dossier on the former Saskatchewan premier and one-time federal NDP leader.
Library and Archives Canada, which currently holds the 1,142-page dossier, initially released just over 450 heavily censored pages in response to a request by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
But the government partially lifted the shroud of secrecy a week before a court hearing into the matter began in February, releasing almost 400 additional pages under a new, more relaxed policy governing the release of historically significant documents.
It was only then, with fuller access to the file, that Paul Champ, lawyer for The Canadian Press, realized about four dozen pages were missing.
What disappoints him is that no one at the archives nor in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — which had supposedly thoroughly reviewed and vetted the original documents — appears to have noticed.
"It's just disappointing that at the end it seems like this important file was not reviewed with the thoroughness we would expect," he said in an interview.
"It does seem like no one really seemed to care that pages were missing."
After Champ notified Federal Court, Judge Simon Noel ordered the government to look for the lost pages. The search didn't turn up any of the missing pages identified by Champ but it found seven other additional pages of material in the original Douglas file, which somehow hadn't made it into the digitally scanned copy used in responding to the access request.
In a written submission to the court earlier this month, the government insisted "there is no evidence of a lack of good faith" in its handling of the Douglas dossier.
"The respondent has been candid, direct and forthcoming with the court when dealing with discrepancies in the records."
The government said the missing pages identified by Champ were not in the original file transferred to Library and Archives in 2000 from CSIS, which had taken over the dossier from the now-defunct RCMP security service in 1984.
The archives "does not take steps to confirm the completeness of the records received from a government institution" and CSIS did not retain a copy.
Pages haven't been found
The government assured the court "no actions were taken" to remove pages before responding to the access request. And it concluded there is no remedy "because the pages can not be found in the existing file."
Champ said he finds it surprising that Library and Archives would take such a lackadaisical approach to historical documents.
"They do have some kind of legal duty as the primary institution responsible for our cultural heritage to ensure that historically important files are maintained and are kept intact and are preserved," he said.
"They're responsible for protecting Canada's documentary heritage and their handling of this file makes me question whether they're discharging all of their responsibilities in that regard."
PMO following case
There is at least one arm of government that is not treating the Douglas files cavalierly: the Prime Minister's Office.
Documents released under a separate access-to-information request show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office has been kept informed about the progress of the court case.
A February "memorandum for the prime minister" detailed the new policy regarding release of historically significant intelligence records and advised that the release of additional material from the Douglas dossier "is going to attract media attention as these documents will disclose, for the first time, some of Mr. Douglas's private communications with other parliamentarians."
From Champ's perspective, however, the additional material released in February simply raised questions as to why the government had refused to disclose it in the first place. Among other things, the new information suggested the RCMP treated black U.S. army deserters differently than white deserters, picking them up and escorting them back across the border.
"Was this embarrassing revelation one of the reasons why CSIS wanted the memo withheld?"
The material released to date shows that the RCMP Security Service shadowed Douglas for more than three decades, attending his speeches, analysing his writings and eavesdropping on private conversations. His links to the peace movement and Communist party members were of particular interest.
The government maintains full disclosure of the Douglas file would jeopardize the country's ability to detect, prevent or suppress "subversive or hostile activities" and could give away secrets of the spy trade.
Jim Bronskill, a reporter for The Canadian Press, launched a court challenge in 2009 after the federal information commissioner agreed with the government that most of the dossier should be kept under wraps.
The disappearance came to light during a lengthy court battle over the federal government's refusal to fully disclose the RCMP dossier on the former Saskatchewan premier and one-time federal NDP leader.
Library and Archives Canada, which currently holds the 1,142-page dossier, initially released just over 450 heavily censored pages in response to a request by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
But the government partially lifted the shroud of secrecy a week before a court hearing into the matter began in February, releasing almost 400 additional pages under a new, more relaxed policy governing the release of historically significant documents.
It was only then, with fuller access to the file, that Paul Champ, lawyer for The Canadian Press, realized about four dozen pages were missing.
What disappoints him is that no one at the archives nor in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — which had supposedly thoroughly reviewed and vetted the original documents — appears to have noticed.
"It's just disappointing that at the end it seems like this important file was not reviewed with the thoroughness we would expect," he said in an interview.
"It does seem like no one really seemed to care that pages were missing."
After Champ notified Federal Court, Judge Simon Noel ordered the government to look for the lost pages. The search didn't turn up any of the missing pages identified by Champ but it found seven other additional pages of material in the original Douglas file, which somehow hadn't made it into the digitally scanned copy used in responding to the access request.
In a written submission to the court earlier this month, the government insisted "there is no evidence of a lack of good faith" in its handling of the Douglas dossier.
"The respondent has been candid, direct and forthcoming with the court when dealing with discrepancies in the records."
The government said the missing pages identified by Champ were not in the original file transferred to Library and Archives in 2000 from CSIS, which had taken over the dossier from the now-defunct RCMP security service in 1984.
The archives "does not take steps to confirm the completeness of the records received from a government institution" and CSIS did not retain a copy.
Pages haven't been found
The government assured the court "no actions were taken" to remove pages before responding to the access request. And it concluded there is no remedy "because the pages can not be found in the existing file."
Champ said he finds it surprising that Library and Archives would take such a lackadaisical approach to historical documents.
"They do have some kind of legal duty as the primary institution responsible for our cultural heritage to ensure that historically important files are maintained and are kept intact and are preserved," he said.
"They're responsible for protecting Canada's documentary heritage and their handling of this file makes me question whether they're discharging all of their responsibilities in that regard."
PMO following case
There is at least one arm of government that is not treating the Douglas files cavalierly: the Prime Minister's Office.
Documents released under a separate access-to-information request show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office has been kept informed about the progress of the court case.
A February "memorandum for the prime minister" detailed the new policy regarding release of historically significant intelligence records and advised that the release of additional material from the Douglas dossier "is going to attract media attention as these documents will disclose, for the first time, some of Mr. Douglas's private communications with other parliamentarians."
From Champ's perspective, however, the additional material released in February simply raised questions as to why the government had refused to disclose it in the first place. Among other things, the new information suggested the RCMP treated black U.S. army deserters differently than white deserters, picking them up and escorting them back across the border.
"Was this embarrassing revelation one of the reasons why CSIS wanted the memo withheld?"
The material released to date shows that the RCMP Security Service shadowed Douglas for more than three decades, attending his speeches, analysing his writings and eavesdropping on private conversations. His links to the peace movement and Communist party members were of particular interest.
The government maintains full disclosure of the Douglas file would jeopardize the country's ability to detect, prevent or suppress "subversive or hostile activities" and could give away secrets of the spy trade.
Jim Bronskill, a reporter for The Canadian Press, launched a court challenge in 2009 after the federal information commissioner agreed with the government that most of the dossier should be kept under wraps.
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