Affidavit No. 1
Ben Chin
Sworn July 27, 2018
OIPC File: F17-70372
In the Matter of Inquiry under the
Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act
Between
‘A Complainant
and
the Office of the Premier
AFFIDAVIT #1 OF Ben Chin
1, Ben Chin, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Finance, Government of Canada, of 90
Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario, SWEAR AS FOLLOWS:
1
Ihave personal knowledge of the facts and matters hereinafter deposed to, except
Where stated to be on information and belief, and where so stated I verily believe
them to be true.
Tam currently the Chief of Staff to the federal Minister of Finance and have held this
position since May 2018. Immediately prior to becoming the Chief of Staff I worked
as a Senior Advisor to the federal Minister of Finance. I started as a Senior Advisor
in October 2017.
Prior to taking a position as a Senior Advisor to the federal Minister of Finance, I
worked in the Office of the Premier in British Columbia as the Executive Director of
‘Communications and Issues Management. I began my employment in the Office of
the Premier in 2012 and continued working in the Office of the Premier until the
summer of 2017,
In my capacity as the Executive Director of Communications and Issues
Management, I oversaw proactive communications that involved the Premier and
issues management strategies relating to key current government issues. A large part
of my responsibilities included handling the overall communications and issues
‘management strategy of the Office of the Premier. The day-to-day actions necessary
to execute this strategy were largely handled by the Director of Communications,Katy Merrifield, and the Director of Issues Management, Shane Mills, who both
reported to me.
Thave been advised by Kristina McKinnon, Barrister and Solicitor with Legal
Services Branch, that on April 7, 2017, the Complainant made an access to
information request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act
(‘FOIPPA”) to the Office of the Premier for “All of Ben Chin’s Email, in all folders,
for the period of 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on April 6, 2017.”
. Lam further advised by Kristina McKinnon that on June 16, 2017, the Complainant
requested from the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services
(which was subsequently transferred to the Office of the Premier): “All records in the
‘message tracking log files of Province of British Columbia servers, maintained by
the Province of B.C. or its contractors, where the record is to and from Ben Chin,
including any of his email addresses, to any recipient, showing the following
categories: date and time, source, event-ID, recipient address, message subject and
sender address — timeline is 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., April 6, 2017.”
. Tam aware that the message tracking logs capture my email traffic for the day after
the Ombudsperson released his public report regarding employment terminations and
related matters within the Ministry of Health.
Before swearing this affidavit I reviewed the 17 pages of message tracking logs
released to the Complainant in response to his June 16, 2017 access request.
._ In responding to the Complainant's April 7, 2017 access request, I would have
searched all my folders in Microsoft Outlook, including the Deleted Items folder, for
responsive records. But I would not have searched the Recover Deleted Items folder
in this instance as I would have considered that unnecessary. This was my usual
practice when responding to an access request and would have been easy to do in
response to this request given that it was just for all emails from the previous day, I
did not make physical copies of any of these emails or save electronic copies of the
emails outside of Microsoft Outlook.10. In my position with the Office of the Premier I received a high volume of emails
every day, Properly managing transitory records was a key part of performing my job
efficiently, so my usual practice in managing my emails was to delete all transitory
emails, 1 also retained my sent emails in Microsoft Outlook where I deemed them not
to be transitory.
11. Based on my review of the message tracking logs, I believe that all the emails I
received on April 6, 2017, were transitory records, and as such, I would have deleted
them to my Recover Deleted Items folder. I would not have searched the Recover
Deleted Items folder in responding to this access request because I believed all
records in that folder to have been transitory and therefore properly disposed of.
12. 1 will next comment on certain types of emails in the message tracking logs as well
‘as on some specific emails in the logs to assist in demonstrating why I believed these
emails to be transitory in nature.
13. While with the provincial government, I subscribed to Today’s News Online
(“TNO”), which is a subscription news service run by Government Communications
& Public Engagement. Given that the responsibilities of my position required an
‘ongoing monitoring of important news stories, I received an email for every story
involving the provincial government. As can be seen by a review of the message
tracking logs for April 6, 2017, I could receive a very large number of TNO emails in
a day, especially when there were recent significant news stories. In some instances,
these emails led to my following up on certain aspects of stories in some manner,
though not necessarily by email. In many instances, | simply deleted the emails after
my review as no further action was required. Based on my review of the message
tracking logs for April 6, 2017, it does not appear I sent any emails as follow-up to
the news stories I received. I would have treated these news stories as transitory and
deleted them after review.
14, My review of the message tracking logs also displays numerous emails where the
subject line is a “Media Advisory” or “News Release” or something similar. These
emails appear to have been sent to me by various government employees (and not