CBC.ca

NDP taunts Sask. Party over 'hidden agenda' files

Thu Apr 24, 11:33 AM

SASKATCHEWAN (CBC) - The NDP says it's found a "hidden agenda" vault in offices at the legislative building that were once home to the Saskatchewan Party.

The two parties switched offices last November after the NDP lost the provincial election. Heading into the election campaign, the NDP often accused the Saskatchewan Party of having a hidden agenda.

Saskatoon Massey Place MLA Cam Broten told the legislature Wednesday the NDP had in its possession boxes of private letters that had been left in a vault in his office.

Also left behind were old VCRs, tape players, a video camera, other electronic equipment, news releases and documents relating to everything from the Gross Revenue Insurance Program to floods at Fishing Lake.

A sign posted on the door said "hidden agenda vault, established 1997," he said.

"You can't make this stuff up Mr. Speaker," Broten said as his caucus colleagues chuckled.

The NDP wrote to the province's privacy commissioner and asked what they should do with the documents, Broten said.

"He wrote back to us, says that we needed to shred it or turn it over to the MLAs across the way," Broten said. "So, to the Sask. Party: We have your files, come and get them."

Broten said if the Saskatchewan Party didn't come get the documents, he'd destroy them.

He told them an MLA would have to come by to pick them up that afternoon.

Later, a worker at the legislative building came by to pick up the material.

The NDP refused to give it to him, saying the privacy commission said the information should be given to an MLA. Later, a Saskatchewan Party caucus worker came by with a permission letter from MLA Doreen Eagles.

She got the package.

The "hidden agenda vault" incident followed an event earlier this month when the NDP released an old Conservative Party videotape that depicted a Conservative MP making disparaging remarks about homosexuals. It said that videotape was also left behind in the move.

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