BCTC continues surveillance even as privacy probe launched

BCTC continues surveillance even as privacy probe launched

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The Globe and Mail
June 13, 2008

VANCOUVER — The B.C. Transmission Corporation is still recording Delta residents’ opposition to a controversial power-line project even as the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner investigates whether the Crown corporation has already violated people’s privacy.

Residents say that affidavits, e-mails, photo and video describing them and their actions opposing the project violate their privacy and are being used by the BCTC to intimidate them. The corporation says it was just gathering evidence for a request for an injunction that would guarantee them access to the properties, and is still gathering evidence in case it needs another injunction.

A thick package was dropped off at Tina Ryan’s door last Friday. In addition to a summons to appear in court, it contained hundreds of pages of affidavits describing the actions of protesting residents, e-mails from people opposed to the power-line project and two DVDs with photographs and video footage of Delta residents protesting against construction. All of these were filed as evidence in the transmission corporation’s injunction request, which the B.C. Supreme Court granted Wednesday.

“I think it’s a form of intimidation. I think they’re trying to say, ‘We’re watching you, we’re tracking you, people who are protesting and speaking out are being watched and their pictures are going to be taken,’ ” Ms. Ryan said.

On June 2, the BCTC started construction on the project, erecting 20 steel poles holding up 230-kilovolt power lines in the Tsawwassen area.

The people who will be living under the power lines say they pose health and safety risks.

BCTC president and CEO Jane Peverett said the company started collecting information on opponents on the instruction of their legal counsel. She said people were refusing them access to their right-of-way and they needed evidence to seek an injunction against them.

“Whenever there was a resident who said to us, ‘We will refuse you or we are refusing you access to our right-of-way,’ that’s when we had to document that they were actively refusing us access,” she said.

BCTC’s legal counsel hired Vancouver-based company Oh Boy Productions to videotape resident resistance on June 2.

Ms. Peverett said her legal counsel paid Oh Boy’s videographers, but she doesn’t know how much. Neither Oh Boy Productions nor the corporation’s legal firm, Fasken Martineau, could be reached for comment.

Ms. Peverett says the corporation did nothing wrong.

“All the evidence that we collected was submitted to the court and is a matter of public record and has been shared with the residents,” she said. “BCTC is a Crown corporation. We’re subject to all the laws of British Columbia, so we have been very careful to act legally and to do only what was required in order to get the injunction. … It certainly wasn’t an intimidation tactic; it was an attempt to get the evidence we needed. But if people felt intimidated, I’m sorry we upset them. That was never our intention.”

Ms. Peverett said they’re still documenting opposition.

“As we’ve continued on with our construction, if there have been any more refusals of access we may also have been taping at that point,” she said. “Oh Boy is still available should we need them. … If somebody is at the moment refusing us access, and I am not aware that they are, we would be required to file an injunction and in that event we would need the same evidence.”

Mary Carlson, executive director of the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, said the commissioner launched a preliminary investigation yesterday after media reports about BCTC’s information-gathering.

“We need to have a look at the bigger picture and then at that point we will decide whether or not there’s merit in doing a more formal investigation.”

Ms. Carlson said there could be similarities between this case and a power-line dispute last summer in Alberta. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hired private investigators to spy on landowners who opposed construction of a power line between Edmonton and Calgary. A report released by Alberta’s Information and Privacy Commissioner in September found the board wasn’t authorized to collect the information and “failed to meet its obligation to protect personal information.”

Guy Gentner, NDP MLA for Delta North, said the government should stop construction on the power-line project while the investigation is going on.

“This type of intimidation and surveillance is completely unacceptable,” he said. “This is the end result of an arrogant government that denied from the beginning [of the project] proper due diligence. … It’s spy versus spy.”

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld was not available for comment.