EUB coverup shocking, Prove to be inept at spying and lying

EUB coverup shocking, Prove to be inept at spying and lying by Paula Simons, August 18, 2007, The Edmonton Journal
Here’s the first rule for orchestrating a successful coverup: Don’t tell lies that can be easily disproved. Clearly, the folks at Alberta’s Energy and Utilities Board missed that lesson at the Richard Nixon Memorial School of Damage Control. It turns out the EUB not only hired private investigators to spy on non-violent, law-abiding rural Albertans. The board then turned around and misled the public about the nature and scope of its dubious behaviour. It’s a double betrayal of public trust. And that’s shocking. … Let’s take the first fib first. Contrary to the board’s assertion that the private investigators were only monitoring the crowd for hints of violence, that no information about people watching the hearings was passed on to the board, the documents, released Thursday by ND leader Brian Mason, include handwritten notes detailing conversations with individual protesters and describe their precise protest tactics. In one unintentionally hilarious passage, the detective describes in detail the actions of “one of the female protesters that supplies baking for the meetings.” The notes suggest the EUB knew the detectives were assuming false identities.