Dozens of pages missing from intelligence file on Tommy Douglas

The Canadian Press
May 29, 2011

OTTAWA - Dozens of pages from a decades-old intelligence file on socialist icon Tommy Douglas have mysteriously disappeared.

The disappearance has come to light as the result of a lengthy court battle over the federal government's refusal to fully disclose the dossier amassed by the RCMP on the former Saskatchewan premier.

They were noticed by Paul Champ, lawyer for The Canadian Press, after the government released some additional pages from the Douglas dossier in February.

A court-ordered search has failed to turn up the missing pages but it did find seven different pages that had been overlooked in responding to the original Access-to-Information request for the Douglas file.

Champ says the lackadaisical handling of the Douglas dossier raises questions as to whether Library and Archives Canada is discharging its responsibility to preserve historically significant documents.

The court challenge was launched by The Canadian Press in 2009 after the government released just over 450 heavily-censored pages from the 1,142-page file; it argued that full disclosure would jeopardize national security.