OTTAWA — Internal emails suggest that two other Conservative staffers were involved in gatekeeping the release of access-to-information documents.
An adviser to cabinet minister Christian Paradis resigned last week after The Canadian Press reported he had intervened in the release of government records on at least four occasions.
Paradis says he was willing to give Sebastien Togneri the benefit of the doubt once, but accepted his resignation when he heard about the other cases for the first time.
But government emails recently tabled with a Commons committee show that Togneri was communicating with other political staff about access issues.
He asks bureaucrats to speak to two other advisers about material the minister’s office would like to see excluded from release.
Paradis would not comment directly on the other staff.
He has asked the information commissioner to review the matter and decided whether further action should be taken.
The commissioner had already been investigating Togneri’s actions in one access-to-information case.