A Saskatchewan historian and author says recent revelations by the province’s speaker about emailed communication raises major issues for the historical record.
This is an opinion piece that I wrote. It was published June 5, 2024 in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and the Regina Leader Post. https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-sask-speaker-scandal-reveals-digital-dilemma-for-history
The spring 2024 session of the Saskatchewan legislature is certainly one for the history books.
All debates and proceedings within the legislative assembly are officially recorded and transcribed, as close to verbatim as possible, “with a minimum of editing and without any alteration of a member’s speech.” These records, known as the Hansard, are available online.
For historians, the Hansard shows how public issues are introduced, framed and debated within the assembly, by elected members of the legislature. It acts as a permanent public record.
That’s why when Speaker Randy Weekes chose to rise from his seat and read text messages and other notes into the record, it mattered. Weekes deliberately shattered the barrier between the hidden digital practices of texting and direct messaging to ensure those ‘secret’ notes became public.
It’s the conversation that we should be having. Weekes revealed the extent that digital communication practices are erasing history, in real time, right here in Saskatchewan.
If you’re uncomfortable with recent moves to rename buildings or streets or remove statues from public display, the practice of conducting government business via text, direct messaging, and private email servers should horrify you.
Historians and archivists know that the rising digital flood for communications has created a whole new era where what is ‘public’ and what is ‘private’ is shifting.
It is, quite simply, extremely easy to hide communication from the public. And when communication is hidden, it’s essentially erased from the accessible historical record.
It’s a huge concern to historians that Saskatchewan Party MLA official emails are neither uniform nor centralized, nor held on a government server.
These emails run the gamut from gmail (Google mail) to Access Communications and SaskTel email to a few who have their own personal email server on their website, such as jeremycockrill.ca.
The issue of ‘hiding’ sensitive government business by using a non-government email account is not new. There have been numerous reports of these practices in Saskatchewan.
Historian Bill Waiser remarked in 2017 that hiding government debates and decisions by using non-public emails puts Saskatchewan “on the cusp of a new dark age.”
Present and future historians won’t have access to those records. Those omissions change the story, changes how history is written. Hiding correspondence can hide truth, erasing potentially important parts of Saskatchewan history.
What Weekes did is extend and complicate the existing email issue. He officially revealed that Saskatchewan’s elected representatives use texts and social media direct messages as a regular communication practice, be it discussing the business of the day or berating a colleague.
In standing up during session and reading direct text messages aloud so those texts were captured into the Hansard and the historical record, Weekes revealed a major flaw of modern legislative procedure.
In-the-moment digital communication is clearly an integral part of each session. Texts direct the flow of the session, set out priorities, give speaking notes, provide background information and insert comments.
As shown by Weekes, the texts reveal much about behind-the-scenes pressure and expectations on not only the speaker but on how the session itself is conducted, and how political parties view the roles and responsibilities of those within it.
Texts and similar direct messages sent during a legislative session should also be part of the public record. What other insights would we historians, and the tax-paying public, uncover?
Depending on who is paying for those cellphones, tablets and computers, it could be argued that all communication data contained on them should be part of the public record, created during session or out of it — including texts, direct messages on social media, and all email accounts, not just the official ones.
Weekes’s text revelations lead historians to wonder: How much government business and decision-making — that the public, both now and in the future, has a right to know — are being conducted behind the veil of digital secrecy?
Because if you’re truly concerned about erasing history, digital communication practices allow government decision-makers to do just that. A dark age, indeed.
Merle Massie is a Saskatchewan historian, author and farmer in west-central Saskatchewan and holds a PhD from the University of Saskatchewan.
NOTE: I believe that it’s good professional writing practice to occasionally write and submit pieces for publication in public forums. This piece expresses collective historical dismay about the risks inherent in modern communication practices.
Thanks very much! Does SK have regulations and protocols about email and text records and servers? Should provincial servers be used? What are solutions to this problem you have noted?
No. The provincial government has no regulations or protocols in place for this issue. The NDP use a centralized server but the SaskParty does not. There are solutions if there is political will to put them in place.