Access to Information emails have uncovered another decision that doesn’t pass the smell test – in this case, the Canada Revenue Agency directing Shared Services Canada to purge their archives of BlackBerry PINs and SMS text messages. The claim is that these are transitory communications that don’t have any business value, but that claim is utterly laughable. Of course business communications are being one PIN-to-PIN, and anyone who believes otherwise is kidding themselves. Sure, some of them may be “don’t’ forget to pick up milk on your way home,” but that doesn’t mean that the CRA shouldn’t still be collecting these communications and sorting out the ones with business value. Oh, but wait – that’s the point, isn’t it? Having a channel of communication that isn’t being picked up by ATIP requests, just like when managers declare, “We’re not taking any notes this meeting” – never mind that it’s in contravention to the government’s own rules around this kind of thing. The Information Commissioner has agreed to look into this case, and has previously warned that this information isn’t being collected in most departments, when all it takes to capture it is to flick a single switch on the servers. As a result, we’re going to find ourselves in a position where there is no paper trail for decisions taken by departments – in this case, CRA – and future governments and future generations will be left to puzzle what was going on. You know, the exact opposite of the point of records retention and archives. That Shared Services meekly went along with the directive is also suspect when they should have pushed back to defend the value of the corporate memory contained within those archives. In other words, a failure all around.

https://twitter.com/tinapittaway/status/547389195669757952

Good reads:

• Health Canada is rescinding its directive to ban citronella-based bug sprays after a great deal of public outcry, and reviewing their decision-making process.
• Economist Stephen Gordon demolishes the Globe and Mail’s “resource curse” assertions.
• Jason Kirby demolishes Tony Clement’s justification for not releasing data in machine-readable formats.
• The Ottawa Citizen has a profile of Conservative rising star Erin O’Toole.
• It’s still business as usual for the Canadian Forces deployed in Iraq over Christmas, but they’re doing the best they can to cope being away from family.

Odds and ends:

A would-be Liberal candidate in Vancouver South recounts how he says the party pressured him not to run in that riding, but in another one instead.

John Baird is heading to Egypt next month to try and get Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy released from prison.

Midday today, Christmas Eve, the carillon in the Peace Tower will play “Silent Night” to commemorate the 1914 Xmas Truce in World War I.

Programming note: I’m on holidays now until the New Year. Posting will be sporadic until then.