P.E.I. government spent $140K on lawyers in privacy investigation

The P.E.I. government says it spent $140,000 in legal costs after hiring an outside lawyer to represent it in an investigation by the province's privacy commissioner.

That investigation concluded government was ultimately responsible for the leak of personal information belonging to three former government employees who went public with allegations of wrongdoing regarding P.E.I.'s provincial nominee program.

Emails and employment records of the three ended up in the hands of the Liberal Party during the 2011 provincial election.

A spokesperson for the MacLauchlan government told CBC News the previous administration of Robert Ghiz engaged lawyer Jim Gormley from the firm Stewart McKelvey to work on the file.

The spokesperson said most of the $140,000 in legal fees was for work that took place during the first three years of the six-year investigation.

Gormley was appointed a P.E.I. Supreme Court judge in October.

A spokesperson from the office of the privacy commissioner told CBCNews that on its side, the office did not hire legal representation as part of its investigation.

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