Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
8, 2012
Back in 2007, I produced stories about how Merali had overstated Capital Healths liabilities in its annual financial statements. Organizations sometimes overstate their liabilities to reduce or eliminate their surpluses, in order to obtain more funding from, in this case, the Alberta government. Merali had overstated Capital Healths liabilities three years in a row, despite Capital Health being privately warned by Albertas auditor general that it was not an accepted auditing practice. The liability stories were the culmination of another tip, from another source. But when they ran back in 2007, I got a call from someone within Capital Health who was pleased to see this troubling practice had been uncovered. I stayed in touch with this person, occasionally calling for information about how the organization operated in a certain area. Understanding how organizations work is critical to informed, focused reporting. We also chatted in 2009 when the media in Ontario revealed that Merali, as a $2,750- dollar-a-day consultant to EHealth Ontario, had claimed such items as tea and a muffin and pop. When I learned Merali had been recently hired as Alberta Healths chief financial officer, I dug up some notes from a conversation I had had with my source when he retired from Capital Health a few years ago. There was a passing reference to Meralis expense claims. I called up my old source and told him about Meralis recent hiring. My source was outraged and told me, in more detail, about Meralis expense claims. The FOI went in and after a few months of wrangling over fees, the records were produced and set off a firestorm that cost Merali and Weatherill their jobs. It also caused a flood of tips to pour in, which have produced yet more FOI requests, and will also, hopefully, in the future, produce more accountability stories. A couple final tips. When I file FOI requests, I ask for all records, as defined by Section 1(q) of Albertas FOI Act. I assume every provincial FOI Act has the equivalent of Alberta`s Section 1(q). It provides an extensive, encompassing definition of records that includes every form of kept information including emails, phone messages, and electronic databases. By specifically referring to this section, it makes it difficult for the processors of my FOI request to selectively choose what is released. And finally, in many cases, I file an FOI request for how they processed my original FOI request. It is one way to determine if there was political interference in the request. And it almost always produces information for another story. Last year, one such request revealed the fact that a minister had deleted every email and shredded every document in contravention of the government`s own retention policies when he left office. Such follow-up requests also almost always yield more information about how a government department is organized and who holds which positions of authority. This can be critical information when dealing with other future sources within that department. Charles Rusnell is an award-winning investigative reporter and producer with CBC Edmonton. He has been making FOI requests since 1984.