VICTORIA – The B.C. Liberal culture of deceit, deception, and delete, delete, delete begins with Premier Christy Clark herself, says John Horgan, Leader of B.C.’s New Democrats.

“Premier Clark and at least four of her closest hand-picked advisers have had their emails hidden from the public and destroyed,” Horgan said. “The premier, her deputy minister, her chief of staff, her deputy chief of staff, and her executive director of communications – every one of them has gone to extraordinary lengths to deceive the people of British Columbia by either avoiding documentation on key decisions, deleting the info, or both.

“The premier can’t get her story straight about why her advisers’ emails can’t be found,” Horgan said. “Today we learned that she’s still trying to play a shell game with public records that she knows have already been destroyed.”

Premier Clark’s inner circle deliberately also destroyed all traces of staff communication during high-profile Liberal embarrassments, including the yoga-on-the-bridge debacle, the ongoing health firings scandal that led to a man’s suicide, and whistleblower Tim Duncan’s revelations about the widespread destruction of public records relating to the Highway of Tears. The minister of transportation even bragged about making sure no one would ever be able to recover his emails.

Other senior Liberal staff have also been caught destroying their correspondence with LNG proponents Petronas, Shell Canada, and Alta Gas.

“This reveals the true character of Premier Clark,” Horgan said. “A premier whose first instinct is to deceive cannot be trusted. Surrounding herself with people whose first instinct is to cover up the truth for the boss just shows who Christy Clark is really there for – herself.”