Corrections employee investigated after leak
Last Updated: Monday, November 2, 2009 | 8:16 PM CT
CBC News
The deputy minister overseeing Saskatchewan's jails has placed an employee on what the government is calling "administrative leave" and has ordered an investigation.
Corrections Minister Yogi Huyghebaert said Monday he wants to know how confidential information about an inmate who was unlawfully at large was made public.
The move comes following a scrap at the legislature last week, when the Opposition NDP raised the case of Brock Wiebe, who had been serving time for sexual assault and assault with a weapon at the Regina Correctional Centre.
Jail officials thought Wiebe had reached his probation date and let him go, although in fact the actual release date was 71 days later.
NDP MLA Kevin Yates wanted to know why the government hadn't told anyone Wiebe had been let out, contrary to a government promise to make public every time someone who was considered dangerous was on the loose.
Huyghebaert said officials were worried the man would hide if they made his case public.
However, Wiebe turned himself in to police and is now in their custody.
Making information about Wiebe public or not is not up to employees, Huyghebaert said.
"It's very much a concern of mine that confidential, classified and sensitive information is being released by somebody somewhere and going directly to [Yates], and that's why the investigation," he said.
The Opposition calls this a witch hunt, accusing the government of targeting a whistleblower.
"This clearly is an issue of public safety," Yates said.
The Opposition has introduced a private member's bill to strengthen whistleblower legislation to protect people who release information in the interest of public safety.
