Affidavit No. 1 Ben Chin Sworn July 27, 2018 OIPC File: F17-70372 In the Matter of Inquiry under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act Between ‘A Complainant and the Office of the Premier AFFIDAVIT #1 OF Ben Chin 1, Ben Chin, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Finance, Government of Canada, of 90 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario, SWEAR AS FOLLOWS: 1 Ihave personal knowledge of the facts and matters hereinafter deposed to, except Where stated to be on information and belief, and where so stated I verily believe them to be true. Tam currently the Chief of Staff to the federal Minister of Finance and have held this position since May 2018. Immediately prior to becoming the Chief of Staff I worked as a Senior Advisor to the federal Minister of Finance. I started as a Senior Advisor in October 2017. Prior to taking a position as a Senior Advisor to the federal Minister of Finance, I worked in the Office of the Premier in British Columbia as the Executive Director of ‘Communications and Issues Management. I began my employment in the Office of the Premier in 2012 and continued working in the Office of the Premier until the summer of 2017, In my capacity as the Executive Director of Communications and Issues Management, I oversaw proactive communications that involved the Premier and issues management strategies relating to key current government issues. A large part of my responsibilities included handling the overall communications and issues ‘management strategy of the Office of the Premier. The day-to-day actions necessary to execute this strategy were largely handled by the Director of Communications,Katy Merrifield, and the Director of Issues Management, Shane Mills, who both reported to me. Thave been advised by Kristina McKinnon, Barrister and Solicitor with Legal Services Branch, that on April 7, 2017, the Complainant made an access to information request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (‘FOIPPA”) to the Office of the Premier for “All of Ben Chin’s Email, in all folders, for the period of 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on April 6, 2017.” . Lam further advised by Kristina McKinnon that on June 16, 2017, the Complainant requested from the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services (which was subsequently transferred to the Office of the Premier): “All records in the ‘message tracking log files of Province of British Columbia servers, maintained by the Province of B.C. or its contractors, where the record is to and from Ben Chin, including any of his email addresses, to any recipient, showing the following categories: date and time, source, event-ID, recipient address, message subject and sender address — timeline is 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., April 6, 2017.” . Tam aware that the message tracking logs capture my email traffic for the day after the Ombudsperson released his public report regarding employment terminations and related matters within the Ministry of Health. Before swearing this affidavit I reviewed the 17 pages of message tracking logs released to the Complainant in response to his June 16, 2017 access request. ._ In responding to the Complainant's April 7, 2017 access request, I would have searched all my folders in Microsoft Outlook, including the Deleted Items folder, for responsive records. But I would not have searched the Recover Deleted Items folder in this instance as I would have considered that unnecessary. This was my usual practice when responding to an access request and would have been easy to do in response to this request given that it was just for all emails from the previous day, I did not make physical copies of any of these emails or save electronic copies of the emails outside of Microsoft Outlook.10. In my position with the Office of the Premier I received a high volume of emails every day, Properly managing transitory records was a key part of performing my job efficiently, so my usual practice in managing my emails was to delete all transitory emails, 1 also retained my sent emails in Microsoft Outlook where I deemed them not to be transitory. 11. Based on my review of the message tracking logs, I believe that all the emails I received on April 6, 2017, were transitory records, and as such, I would have deleted them to my Recover Deleted Items folder. I would not have searched the Recover Deleted Items folder in responding to this access request because I believed all records in that folder to have been transitory and therefore properly disposed of. 12. 1 will next comment on certain types of emails in the message tracking logs as well ‘as on some specific emails in the logs to assist in demonstrating why I believed these emails to be transitory in nature. 13. While with the provincial government, I subscribed to Today’s News Online (“TNO”), which is a subscription news service run by Government Communications & Public Engagement. Given that the responsibilities of my position required an ‘ongoing monitoring of important news stories, I received an email for every story involving the provincial government. As can be seen by a review of the message tracking logs for April 6, 2017, I could receive a very large number of TNO emails in a day, especially when there were recent significant news stories. In some instances, these emails led to my following up on certain aspects of stories in some manner, though not necessarily by email. In many instances, | simply deleted the emails after my review as no further action was required. Based on my review of the message tracking logs for April 6, 2017, it does not appear I sent any emails as follow-up to the news stories I received. I would have treated these news stories as transitory and deleted them after review. 14, My review of the message tracking logs also displays numerous emails where the subject line is a “Media Advisory” or “News Release” or something similar. These emails appear to have been sent to me by various government employees (and not