You just have to ask yourself...

..."What would a Liberal do?"...

-- VANCOUVER -- The provincial government may have destroyed all cabinet e-mails between 2001 and 2005, opening a huge gap in the official record despite a law that electronic files must be kept for at least seven years, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has learned.

Michael Bolton, who is defending one of three former government employees in a political corruption case stemming from the sale of BC Rail, said outside court Monday he was stunned to hear the e-mails aren't available.

“This is troubling... this potentially is a very serious matter. We never expected this,” said Mr. Bolton, who is defending Dave Basi, who was a ministerial aid in 2003 when the government sold BC Rail to CN Rail for $1-billion.

I remember back in my mainframe days... we had an inviolable 7 year rule on archiving backup tapes. Oh wait... so does British Columbia...

“The Document Disposal Act requires that electronic records be kept for seven years,” he said. “It raises incredible suspicions and someone farther up the political chain that Mr. Copley is going to have to appear in court and explain what happened.”

The government of B.C. has a detailed protocol covering both the preservation and destruction of its records.

Formal records can be destroyed, but only after the action has been approved by a public documents committee, the legislative assembly or the attorney general.

Hmmm.