About 40 missed documents found, cancer inquiry told

A Newfoundland and Labrador government search has turned up about 40 documents that had previously been missed, a lawyer told a public inquiry Thursday.

Rolf Pritchard, counsel for the province at a judicial inquiry investigating flawed hormone receptor testing, informed Justice Margaret Cameron of the discovery as the inquiry began proceedings after a two-day delay.

Commission co-counsel Bern Coffey asked Cameron for an additional one-day delay so that lawyers could review the new evidence.

Cameron agreed and adjourned proceedings until Friday morning.

The inquiry halted Tuesday amid revelations that senior civil servant Robert Thompson — who was hand-picked by Premier Danny Williams last year to launch the inquiry — had uncovered a series of e-mails that had not been turned over to the commission of inquiry.

The e-mails, which have not yet been made public, include an e-mail sent to the premier's office in July 2005, when then health minister John Ottenheimer was informed of problems with hormone receptor testing at a pathology lab in St. John's.

Ottenheimer, who is now expected to continue his testimony on Friday, has told the inquiry that his communications director informed the premier's office "on or about" the same time he found out.

Pritchard told the inquiry Thursday that a subsequent search of e-mail archiving systems is about 95 per cent complete, and that he expected documents to be brought to the commission that morning so they could be shared with counsel.

The inquiry has been told that e-mails were missed during a previous search for documentation using now-discontinued software. Government officials recently shifted to Microsoft Outlook, which Thompson used this week to find the additional archived messages.

In a message sent to Pritchard, Thompson said he was prompted to do the search while listening to Ottenheimer's testimony on Monday.