The British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) is raising eyebrows after demanding half a million dollars to produce internal documents related to money laundering at its land-based casinos.

This week, word broke that the Unite Here union, which represents the province’s casino workers, had filed a request under BC’s freedom of information (FOI) laws for all BCLC documents in the past five years that dealt with anti-money laundering (AML) compliance at BC casinos operated by Great Canadian Gaming Corp.

BCLC’s response to Unite Here’s filing was to insist that the union first provide a C$252k (US$201k) deposit on an ultimate charge of $504k that the Crown corporation insisted was required for it to produce the requested information.

Unite Here rep Marc Hollin told the Vancouver Sun that the payment demand left him “absolutely flabbergasted.” Hollin called the fee “prohibitively high” and let him with the impression that the fee “was a deterrent to accessing information.”