Photo of John Horgan, NDP Energy Critic

New Democrats are alleging in a complaint to the British Columbia information and privacy office that the Liberal government is using “intentionally secretive” methods to block scrutiny of its Green Energy Advisory Task Force.

NDP energy critic John Horgan and MLA Rob Fleming charged Tuesday that the government set up temporary Google e-mail accounts enabling task force members to communicate and to aggregate information outside the realm of government e-mail accounts.

They make their claims in a letter to Paul Fraser, acting information and privacy commissioner.

“What we have been advised is that this task force process has been designed not to illuminate the debate but rather to focus it for cabinet’s benefit,” Horgan said in a telephone interview.

That tactic has excluded the task force from compliance with both information and privacy laws, and the province’s Document Disposal Act, according to the letter.

“The larger concern that we have relates to the decision to conduct the process of public policy making in an intentionally secretive manner,” the letter says.

The contacts page of the task force’s website appears to confirm that allegation, listing gmail.com addresses for all four advisory sub-groups.

By coincidence, the province on Thursday announced an Elections Task Force that will employ a government e-mail account to collect public comment.

The task force received recommendations from numerous groups that focus on the B.C. electricity sector, but none of those submissions are available for review on the website.

The work of the energy group has singular relevance to the province’s economic future — the government wants B.C. to develop an export electricity industry which critics believe will degenerate into a money-losing enterprise at taxpayers’ expense.

None of the four sub-groups are led by government employees, although some of the 29 people named last November to the Energy Task Force work for Crown-derived agencies.

To date, the government has produced no evidence that the scheme will work.

“While we applaud these individuals for their contribution to public policy, we nonetheless believe that they should have conducted their deliberations in a manner that is both transparent and documented,” Horgan and Fleming wrote.

“These are fundamental issues that have generated a great deal of debate in British Columbia,” Horgan said in an interview subsequent to the release of the NDP’s letter to Fraser. “A mature and responsible government would see this as an opportunity to bring the message to the people rather than to frame the message in a closed-door session with people they hand-picked.”

The Pembina Institute energy watchdog group expressed a similar concern in a letter last month to Premier Gordon Campbell, stating that a lack of transparency “will undermine public support for any final recommendations.”

Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom had not responded by deadline to a request for comment on the NDP’s allegations.