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Canada's information commissioner may launch another investigation into the former aide of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis, following allegations the staffer tried to block the release of information.
Sebastien Togneri resigned late Thursday night following a report by The Canadian Press alleging he had meddled in at least four Access to Information Act requests while working as a staff member for Paradis. Paradis was public works minister at the time.
Togneri was already under investigation by Information Commissioner of Canada Suzanne Legault for ordering senior civil servants at Public Works to censor a document requested by The Canadian Press under the act.
Legault told CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon that that investigation is already fairly advanced and that they've had good collaboration from all parties involved. She said she received documents from Public Works on Friday in relation to the Togneri case.
"It's about 1,000 pages of documents we have to review and see whether or not that will have a bearing on the ongoing investigation or whether I will have to begin another investigation," she said.
Emails surfaced this week that appear to show that Togneri attempted to suppress information to be released in at least three other access-to-information requests last year. One was for documents about the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Ottawa, another dealt with asbestos exports.
"Please exclude the following that is highlighted," he told one access officer at Public Works. Another email from him said: "I encourage the ATIP [Access to Information and Privacy] department to remove everything but the work order."
On Friday, opposition members called for Paradis to resign. During question period in the House of Commons, Paradis repeatedly said he had turned over the new material about Togneri's vetting of access requests to the information commissioner.
"I quickly took the file and I asked the minister of public works to take the file and to send it to the information commissioner, which was done," he said.
With files from The Canadian PressShare Tools
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