Vernon - The BC Liberal government has just revealed that it knew about a very serious security breach involving allegedly stolen information from 1,400 British Columbians on income assistance, but did nothing to notify those people to protect their personal information.
It was the RCMP who found missing documents inside of a Victoria home of a government worker last April, and those documents were handed to the BC Liberals in May. Yet it was not until seven months later that the victims were informed.
"I wish I could say I'm surprised," remarked BC Conservative Party
Director and former candidate for Vernon-Monashee, Dean Skoreyko.
"Unfortunately for the people of British Columbia, this is the modus
operandi of this government."
Skoreyko said it's reminiscent of the recent allegations surrounding
former Liberal assistant deputy health minister Ron Danderfer of corruption and bribery. These revelations only came to light when members of the media looked at an RCMP investigation into it.
It raises two very serious questions:
1) has the person(s) responsible in his department who failed to reveal this information been fired?
2) did the Liberals know about this before the May
election, and did they sit on the information in order to seek reelection?
The minister now handling the file, Ben Stewart for Westside-Kelowna, says that he "may" have found out about it only two weeks ago. "That doesn't change the fact that this government hasn't been held to
account on its own actions," said Skoreyko.
"Was this Liberal government trying to escape responsibility for losing sensitive and personal information about the residents of this province," said Skoreyko.
The BC Conservative Party finds it offensive that the government did
not notify those affected by the security breach in a timely manner
and call for the resignation of the minister for his handling of the
case.
Dean Skoreyko
250.494.8225
deanskoreyko@gmail.com
