Would you believe me?

PREFACE

Although Judge Gordon Campbell has not yet – to my knowledge – granted public access to the factums and cross-examination transcripts filed with the PEI Supreme Court for the CMT Motion Hearing scheduled to begin on election day (April 23, 2019), a private investigator based in Toronto somehow obtained and posted a portion of Robert Ghiz’s cross-examination transcript that took place in January, 2019. That cross-examination was based on the sworn affidavit Ghiz filed with the court on December 3, 2018.

I published an article titled Robert Ghiz’s “Sworn” Affidavit on his Decision to Destroy E-Gaming Documents at that time, focusing on what Ghiz swore to be true concerning the form he signed ordering Information Technology Shared Services (ITSS) to destroy all the government records of his Chief-of-Staff, Chris LeClair, which he spoke to in paragraph 8:

I was completely dumbfounded that Ghiz would swear – presumably on a Bible – that he “…had no knowledge of the procedures followed by ITSS after a form was received.“

How could a premier of a provincial government sign a form authorizing the destruction of all the electronic records of his Chief-of- Staff  without first ensuring that those records were backed-up for storage – which the Provincial Archives and Records Act and Freedom of Information and Privacy Act both legally require – just a few days after his Chief-of-Staff left his position with government, and not know that by doing so they would be gone forever?

Needless to say, I was eager to see how Ghiz would answer questions from Capital Markets Technology’s (CMT’s) lawyer regarding his shocking and unbelievable claim found in his affidavit.

I surmised that one of two things would happen under cross-examination: (1) either Ghiz would fess up and admit he didn’t tell the truth; or (2) he’d present himself as a complete idiot. 

Guess what happened?

 

What If I Told You…..Would You Believe Me?

GHIZ:  What if I told you that I signed the record removal form for my Chief-of-Staff asking me to check a “yes” or “no” box in response to a question on whether I wanted my Chief-of-Staff’s government records to be deleted, or retained and “proxied” to someone else, but that I didn’t realize that asking ITSS to delete the records meant that they would actually be “deleted,” because I only signed the form and it was someone else who “checked” the “yes” box on the form…….would you believe me?

GHIZ: And what if I told you that I didn’t actually read the form, but only “perused” the form; and that in my perusal of the form, I somehow didn’t see the only sentence typed into the form in the “notes or comments” field, despite it being only about an inch above my signature saying: “Chris LeClair’s Desktop has already been wiped“……would you believe me?

GHIZ:  And what if I told you that I had no idea that the words “desktop” in the sentence “Chris LeClair’s Desktop has already been wiped” referred to Chris LeClair’s “Desktop computer”…..would you believe me?   

And what if I also told you that although I signed the form informing ITSS that Chris LeClair’s computer had been wiped, I wasn’t the person who authorized Chris LeClair’s computer to be wiped, or had any idea who actually wiped Chris’s computer clean….would you believe me?

GHIZ: And what if I told you that even though I personally didn’t know anything about record management, I was sure at the time that someone else in government did, because I knew that there were a lot of smart people working for me who would take care of that stuff; and although I actually don’t recall who they were, or how many there were, I’m pretty sure there were somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 staff working for me at the time, give or take 5,000 people…..would you believe me?  

Below is the form Ghiz signed, but apparently didn’t read.

If you believe what Ghiz swore in his affidavit and cross-examination, you also have to believe that (1) someone else within his office took it upon him or herself to wipe all the records of his Chief of Staff’s computer without Ghiz’s knowledge or approval; then (2) noted on the ITTS form that Chris LeClair’s computer had been “wiped” clean; (3) then checked the two boxes authorizing ITSS to destroy all LeClaire’s electronic emails and network files, but didn’t mention a word of any of that to Ghiz when he or she (4) shoved that form in front of Ghiz for his signature; knowing that only Ghiz had the authority to do any of that, being Chris LeClair’s “supervisor,” given that authorization for such a destruction order had to come from the employee’s supervisor; then (5) sent that signed form over to ITSS without first ensuring those files were copied and archived, something that was required under provincial law. 

You now have a difficult choice to make….choose one of the following two possible explanations carefully:

Is the former Liberal Premier of Prince Edward Island, Robert Ghiz:

(A) Chronically evasive and untruthful? or,

(B) Grossly incompetent?

 

And let’s not forget that Wade MacLauchlan – following in Ghiz’s footsteps – authorized the destruction of all Robert Ghiz’s electronic records and emails a couple of weeks after he was elected Premier in 2015.  He may have backed up some of those records, but my Access Request for any e-gaming records from Ghiz came back recently NO RECORDS FOUND!