December, 2003 – The Legislative offices of ministerial aides to the Ministers of Finance and Transportation are raided as part of an ongoing investigation related to the BC Rail deal and other government business. The RCMP seized boxes of government documents, computers and other materials. Additional government documents were seized from the homes of ministerial aides David Basi and Robert Virk.

Early January, 2004 – The Special Prosecutor, in consultation with George Copley, develops a protocol for the review of documents seized from the Legislature.

January 12, 2004 – An email from Deputy Attorney General Allan Seckel to George Copley states that Seckel and Premier Gordon Campbell’s key advisor Ken Dobell discussed the process prior to the submission of the final protocol to Justice Dohm.

January 14, 2004 – Protocol for review of documents seized from the Legislature is submitted to Associate Chief Justice Dohm. It required the documents identified by Justice Dohm as relevant or potentially relevant to be reviewed by Deputy Cabinet Secretary Joy Illington, whose role it was to instruct lawyer for the Executive Council George Copley to assert or not assert privilege.

October 7, 2004 – Andrea Mackay of the Special Prosecutor’s office writes to Copley to inform him that the RCMP would like to interview Ministers Collins and Reid and government officials Chris Trumpy, David Morhart and Yvette Wells in relation to three documents dealing with the second round in the BC Rail Partnership Process. The Special Prosecutor provided a list of interview questions and instructs Copley not to discuss the contents of the documents or the nature of the questions with Collins, Reid, Trumpy, Morhart or Wells. The three documents were:

• BC Rail Company Freight Railway Partnership Process Second Round Criteria; this document is identified as a confidential draft for Cabinet review only; dated July 16, 2003 and signed by the Honourable Judith Reid
• BC Railway Partnership Process Round Two Evaluation Criteria Background for Presentation to Cabinet for Decision; dated July 23, 2003
• Memorandum from Joy Illington to the Honourable - Judith Reid with copy to Chris Trumpy, dated August 5, 2003, which discusses the minutes of the Cabinet meeting on July 23, 2003

NOTE: These documents are among the documents seized by the RCMP in connection with the investigation, and are potential evidence in the BC Rail corruption trial. They are not publicly available, and are not among the materials obtained in the affidavits.

October 8, 2004 – Copley informs Illington and asks for instruction.

November 1, 2004 – Copley writes a memorandum to file regarding documents returned to the Executive Council by the Crown on January 20, 2004, after Associate Chief Justice Dohm deemed them irrelevant. Counsel is now of the view that the documents may be relevant. The documents had been turned over to Joy Illington and held in her office safe. Copley states he informed Illington that the documents would be reviewed “more carefully for a claim of privilege”. Copley notes Illington would be on holiday between November 1 and December 2.

NOTE: This is further clarified in a note from Nancy Reimer to Copley on January 10, 2005.

“The paper documents are the ones that were returned to us by Mr. Justice Dohm, that we had claimed privilege over, but he had indicated were not relevant to the investigation that we had returned to Joy, then had to retrieve them when the RCMP and Special Prosecutor thought there were some relevant documents among them – in particular, the ones used for the last round of interviews right before charges were laid in December 2004.”

November 24, 2004 – Copley emails Ken Dobell to confirm instructions given by Dobell regarding the assertion of privilege. This email is further to a meeting earlier that morning in which Dobell and Copley discussed “the confidential documents” that would be the subject of the RCMP interviews. In that meeting Dobell instructed Copley not to assert privilege, thereby allowing the RCMP to have access to the documents for their interviews. Copley notes that privilege will continue to be asserted for all other purposes.

December 14, 2004 – Gary Collins resigns.

December 21, 2004 – David Basi, Robert Virk and Anneal Basi are charged.

May 28, 2007 – in estimates debate, Campbell is questioned as to whether he will commit to releasing all the documents sought by the court and over which privilege is claimed. Campbell responded by asserting that the Premier’s Office did not have direct input into the disclosure of documents.

C. James: “Right now, as the Premier knows, the court is considering significant disclosure applications which include government documents that are not yet in the hands of the special prosecutor… My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier commit to releasing all the documents that are being sought by the court?”

Hon. G. Campbell: “There is a special prosecutor involved in this. The Premier's office does not have a direct input into that, certainly not with this government… I can tell you this right now, hon. Chair. This Premier's office is not involved directly in that.” [Hansard, May 28, 2007, emphasis added]