When Catherine Urquhart of Global News revealed what happened behind a closed-door Metro Vancouver meeting in December, she then became the story. This shouldn’t be the case.

She is the story because the Metro Vancouver chair, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, decried the leak and promised to find the source of it through an investigation. His decision is the real story, the true controversy, the unsettling fact, and there should be no other focus now than to call off the dogs.

Urquhart reported the meeting dealt with the suspension of the Chief Financial Officer by her boss, the Chief Administrative Officer, without board approval. She said the board decided that the CFO should depart, after all, and that the CAO is awaiting a January board meeting to determine whether he overreached without its approval. Metro Van admits the CFO is gone, but nothing about the CAO situation. Hurley says there is inaccurate reporting on this issue but won’t specify.

The response to the leak of information tells you almost everything you need to know about Metro Vancouver’s current state of mind. Faced with public scrutiny, the regional government has chosen to hunt the leaker rather than confront the substance of what was leaked, or anything in its governance culture to fix.

That instinct is not merely misplaced. It is actively corrosive.

Leaks are inconvenient. They are embarrassing. They disrupt carefully choreographed........

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