The mystery of the missing website

When the new Peel consultation website was launched in late October, it replaced the record of the 2010 consultations.

It has no link to the 2010 site nor is the old information buried deep in the new Frequently Asked Questions section.

A Google search for the old site turned up zip.

The regional land use planning page on the Yukon government's Energy, Mines and Resources’ website didn’t have it either.

And it wasn't on the Peel planning commission’s site, where it also belongs, beside hundreds of other documents representing seven years of work on the region.

It simply had vanished.

Queries to the government determined that the only person who might know was on holidays for the week and the land use planning council folks said it hadn't been sent to them.

Just when it looked like this may be a case for Inspector Clouseau (of Pink Panther fame), the missing website miraculously materialized.

It didn't want to talk about where it had been, but it did return with a brand, new url - http://2010.peelconsultation.ca.

And even though it's missing a “www” and still can't be located with an Internet search, at least it's safe and sound.

Not only does it contain a complete collection of comments and submissions made by individuals, organizations and industry in 2010, it has transcriptions of all that was said at every public meeting in Whitehorse, Mayo, Dawson City, Old Crow, Fort McPherson, Aklavik, Tsiigehtchic and Inuvik.

A true public record.

And even though it's two years old, it's still a great read.

More importantly it can pinch-hit for those in need of a Peel reading fix over the next four or five months while they wait for the government to release what people are saying now.

Unlike 2010, when the public's comments and submissions were immediately posted online, this time the government's keeping them under lock and key until the consultation period ends in the spring.

Gone also are the public meetings of the past, where people could hear what each other had to say. They've been replaced by tightly-controlled "open houses" where officials will meet people one-on-one and jot down their concerns on a flip chart.

As Inspector Clouseau would say:“There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh and this is not one of them.”