The head of a union local that represents city workers claims that an e-mail block set up by the City of Vancouver, preventing city correspondence to and from his union, was “effectively censorship”.

Paul Faoro, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 15, said this on March 13 before confirming that the blockade is still in effect. Currently, nobody whose e-mail address ends with vancouver.ca can send e-mail to or receive messages from any CUPE address. On March 26, the Straight received a response to a freedom-of-information request asking which other individuals or organizations were on the banned list.

Chris Shin, the city’s acting corporate information and privacy manager, sent a list containing 13 rules. Two of those are blocks to and from CUPE. Consumer watchdog Kelly Alm also cannot e-mail the city, nor can anybody using Portal Amazí´nia, a Brazilian banking Web site.

Most of the blocks appear aimed at thwarting spam, such as the one preventing rusingle@mail.com from reaching city mailboxes, according to the FOI attachment the city sent the Straight. The city has also barred e-mails containing the words public slap in the subject line.

In an April 2 letter to corporate management, obtained by the Straight, city manager Judy Rogers confirmed that general manager of human resources services Mike Zora is retiring. Zora gave the directive for the CUPE e-mail block.