WxT Language switcher

Decision pursuant to 6.1, 2026 OIC 68

Date of decision: October 9, 2026

Summary

An institution submitted an application seeking the Information Commissioner’s approval to decline to act on an access request under subsection 6.1(1) of the Access to Information Act. In the institution’s opinion, the access request is an abuse of the right of access.

The Commissioner finds that the institution established that the access request at issue is an abuse of the right of access. Moreover, the circumstances warrant that she provides her approval to the institution to decline to act on this access request.

The application is granted.

Application

Under subsection 6.1(1) of the Act, the head of a government institution may seek the Commissioner’s written approval to decline to act on an access request if, in the head of the institution’s opinion, the request is one or more of the following:

  • vexatious
  • made in bad faith
  • an abuse of the right to make a request for access to records.

Institutions may not decline to act on access requests for the sole reason that the requested information was already proactively published under Part 2 of the Act (subsection 6.1(1.1)).

The institution bears the burden of establishing that the access request meets one or more of the requirements under subsection 6.1(1).

If the institution establishes that one or more of the requirements of subsection 6.1(1) apply, the Commissioner must exercise her discretionary power to either grant or refuse the application.

In exercising her discretion, the Commissioner will consider all relevant factors and circumstances, including:

  • The quasi-constitutional nature of the right of access;
  • The public interest in the records sought;
  • Whether the institution met its obligations under subsection 4(2.1) to make every reasonable effort to assist a requester in connection with their request.

Access requests at issue

On August 25, 2026, the institution sought the Commissioner’s approval to decline to act on an access request it had received on April 14, 2026. The access request is the following:

All records from 2019 to 2025 including statistical summaries of complaints received, investigation outcomes, department-by-department non-compliance records, and any corrective orders or compliance agreements issued.

According to the institution, the access request is an abuse of the right of access.

Preliminary matters

The requester argued that the Commissioner should refuse the application because it was made outside the 30-day period to initially respond to the request, or outside a validly taken extension period. To support their view, the requester cited an archived webpage published on the website of the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).

As mentioned on the archived page, information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes only.

As mentioned in the decision 2023 OIC 47, section 6.1 does not impose a mandatory timeline by which the Commissioner’s approval to decline to act on an access request should be sought. While an application seeking her approval should generally be made within the first 30 days of the institution receiving an access request or within a valid time extension, the Commissioner accepts that the timeliness of an application may be affected by the circumstances of each case.

The institution submitted its application just over 4 months after the requester submitted their access request. The application indicates that during the time leading up to its application, the institution faced unexpected and exceptional operational constraints, took a 30-day time extension and communicated with the requester on multiple occasions regarding possible avenues for reducing the scope of the request, which it maintained would result in a large volume of records. The last communication was on July 10, 2026, about 4 weeks before the institution submitted its application.

In view of the above circumstances, the Commissioner finds that the time taken by the institution to submit its application under subsection 6.1(1) was reasonable. Consequently, she finds that the institution’s application is not untimely.

The requester also requested that the application be considered in the context of their complaint, which they submitted to the OIC contesting the institution’s delay in responding to the request and alleging that it had failed in its duty to assist with the request.

Applications under subsection 6.1(1) and complaint processes are distinct and separate even when they relate to the same access request. The statutory objective of section 6.1 of the Act is to allow institutions to decline to act on access requests that are vexatious, made in bad faith or an abuse of the right to make an access request. Here, “decline to act” means every action that is required by the institution in relation to the access request, including responding to any related complaints. When the Commissioner received the institution’s application, the requester’s complaint was held in abeyance; it will remain in abeyance until the date of the present decision.

Is the access request an abuse of the right of access?

The Act provides requesters with a right to access information under a government institution’s control—a right that should not be abused.

The Commissioner considers an abuse to have occurred when an access request exceeds the limits of the legitimate exercise of that right. When determining whether a request is abusive, she focuses on the scope, nature and cumulative effect of the request, including the following:

  • whether the request is repetitive or overly broad
  • whether the request was made with a purpose other than obtaining documents or information
  • whether acting on the request would overburden the institution and/or obstruct the institution’s ability to respond to other access requests (and, therefore, affect other requesters’ right of access) or both.

The Commissioner may also consider the institution’s efforts, if any, to help the requester determine what information they want and/or narrow the scope of their request. She may also consider the requester’s responses to such efforts, including the extent to which they have demonstrated a willingness to work with the institution.

The institution argued that the access request is an abuse of the right of access because it is overly broad, it would overburden the institution, and its purposes are contrary to the Act.

Scope

The institution argued that the scope of the request is overly broad and disproportionate to any apparent informational objective. As such, it raises serious concerns that the request constitutes an abuse of the right of access. The institution established that the following types of documents would be relevant to the request:

  • reports;
  • final reports;
  • legal opinions;
  • statistical data;
  • correspondence emails with complainants;
  • correspondence emails with institutions;
  • any emails, memos, briefing notes, analyses, drafts, meeting notes, dates, final documents, excel spreadsheets related to the above-mentioned documents.

Burden

The institution explained that the responsive records are found in its official record keeping repository. The institution selected the folders containing responsive records to generate how many gigabytes would have to be analysed by the two part-time ATIP analysts. The institution argued that the request would result in 44.39 GB of documents and provided a breakdown by folder.

The institution further submits, based on a public source, that one gigabyte is equivalent to 65,000 pages, which would translate into about 2.9 million pages to analyse.

The institution further claimed that it is not equipped to handle such high volume of documents in terms of software and ATIP workforce. The institution explained that the ATIP analysts’ first step is to contact each Office of Primary Interest (OPI) to retrieve the pertinent documents and to add those documents in a specific folder. Once the documents have been copied by the OPIs, the ATIP analysts must then manually download each document to format them into PDFs. The institution argued that the preparation of the working documents is expected to monopolize the two part-time ATIP analysts’ time and overburden the OPIs, and as such hinder other requesters’ right of access. The analysis of the documents is also expected to monopolize the ATIP analysts’ time, which would also obstruct the analysts’ abilities to respond to and carry out other ATIP requests.

The institution further explained that three out of four branches would be required to retrieve the appropriate documents. The institution also claimed that each branch would require three to five employees to retrieve the relevant information, which would slow down and overburden the branches’ operations for an indeterminate period.

The institution estimated that the retrieval, the preparation and the analysis of the documents to take approximately ten years (one year for the retrieval of the documents, four years for the preparation of the documents, and five years for the analysis of the documents).

Purposes

The institution also argued the request is not made for a genuine access purpose but rather to impose an unreasonable burden on the institution’s ATIP capacity, especially given the multiple attempts it made to narrow down the scope of the request with the requester.

The institution also argued that the purpose of the request appears to be to audit its investigation process and workflow and that this is contrary to the Act. According to the institution, this oversight framework regarding the institution’s work belongs, instead, to Parliament and the Office of the Information Commissioner, who are respectively tasked with evaluating its investigative work or its information management practices.

Discussion

Is the access request overly broad?

The parties appear to accept that the request pertains to a specific subject matter, namely, the institution’s complaints. For example, the institution said the following:

Please note that all records relating to complaints received between 2019 and 2025 would result in a large number of documents. Is there a way to narrow the scope of your request?

…

Given the nature of the request, three out of four branches would be required to retrieve the appropriate documents, such as […]

The requester did not correct the institution or clarify that it has misinterpreted the scope of the request. In any event, the Commissioner finds that a plain reading of the access request supports the institution’s interpretation.

Based on the evidence provided by the institution, the Commissioner finds that the request is overly broad. The request seeks information relating to the institution’s core operations and main function, namely, investigations and complaints, over a period of six years. The requester did not clarify the type of complaints they were looking for, identify a specific institution or a particular issue, or otherwise narrow the scope of the request. The requester is essentially looking for all information, relating to all complaints and investigations from 2019 to 2025. This is supported by the use of “all records” which suggests the broadest breadth and type of information, combined with the non-exhaustive term “including.”

As a result, the institution estimates that the request generates approximately 2.9 million records and would take several years to process. Given the scope of the request, the length of the timeframe requested, and the extraordinary volume of records involved, the Commissioner is satisfied that the request is overly broad. As will be discussed further below, this will undoubtably overburden the institution.

Additionally, the Commissioner notes that the requester indicated in their representations that they are interested in “how the federal public service delivers services in both official languages, and whether language technology can enable bilingual service delivery without requiring individual fluency of every public servant.” The requester therefore appears to be primarily interested in complaints pertaining to a specific part of the institution’s enabling statute. Despite this, the access request encompasses much more information, such as complaints related to all other parts of the institution’s enabling statute – not just those related to the delivery of services. For that reason, the Commissioner finds that the scope of the access request is much broader than what is of interest to the requester, and that this contributes to the scope being overly broad and an abuse of the right of access.

Based on the above, the Commissioner concludes that the access request at issue is overly broad and therefore an abuse of the right of access. While this is sufficient to demonstrate that subsection 6.1(1) applies, the Commissioner will nevertheless turn to the institution’s second argument – that the access request would overburden it.

Would the access request overburden the institution?

To support the view that the access request would overburden it, the institution claimed that there would be 2.9 million pages to analyse.

In response to the institution’s application, the requester claimed that this number was calculated against the wrong period, and pointed out that an analyst mentioned in one email the 2015-2019 period. The Commissioner acknowledges that the period mentioned in one of the emails was not the correct period, but she finds that the requester is giving too much weight to what appears to be a typo. Nothing in the present application, at the exception of this email, suggests that the institution considered the wrong period. Moreover, even if the institution had mistakenly used the 2015-2019 period, this would not support the requester’s position. The 2015-2019 period covers approximately four years, whereas the requester sought records for the 2019-2025 period, which spans approximately six years. As a result, using the shorter period would likely have produced a lower page estimate than the estimate associated with the broader period actually requested. In that sense, the requester’s argument tends to reinforce, rather than undermine, the reasonableness of the institution’s estimate.

The requester also claimed that the 2.9 million pages, which is derived from the addition of the size of eighteen folders, do not represent responsive records, because the institution failed to take into consideration that these folders would include duplicates, records that fall outside the 2019-2025 period and records that are not relevant.

The Commissioner agrees that the 2.9 million pages do not appear to represent responsive records. But she also notes that the institution never said that there would be 2.9 million pages of responsive records. The institution stated that there would be 2.9 million pages “to analyse”, which the Commissioner understands to mean “to analyse for relevance” or that may need to be acted on.

In any event, as the Commissioner mentioned in 2024 OIC 78, she accepts that, for the purpose of an application under subsection 6.1(1), an institution may provide a page count estimate that is not limited to responsive records. In that case, she found that the overall effort required to process the request, including assessing records for relevancy and identifying and eliminating duplicates, may be considered in determining whether the request constitutes an abuse of the right of access.

The requester also argues that the institution has not demonstrated that the estimated 44.39 GB is limited to records falling with the 2019 to 2025 timeframe provided in the request. As indicated above, there is no evidence before the Commissioner to suggest that the estimate is materially overstated. Accordingly, the Commissioner is satisfied that, considering the breadth of the access request, the estimate remains a reasonable and realistic approximation of the processing effort required by the institution.

As noted in 2024 OIC 60:

Institutions are not required to provide a precise calculation, but estimates of the volume of information that may be generated by an access request must be reasonable and realistic. The institution has provided detailed explanations to support the calculation of the estimated number of pages that the access request would generate. This calculation is not perfect and includes a considerable margin of error. Nevertheless, the estimate and explanations provided allow the Commissioner to find that the access request would still generate millions of pages.

In the present case, the institution provided detailed explanations regarding the various types of records subject to the request, the various servers affected by the request, sufficient evidence demonstrating that the majority of its branches were affected by the request, and the methodology used to arrive at its estimate. While the estimate is necessarily imperfect, and may include a margin of error, the Commissioner is satisfied that the evidence supports a reasonable and realistic approximation of the volume requiring review given the breadth of the request at issue.

The requester also questioned the institution’s conversion of the 44.39 GB into 2.9 million pages. As mentioned above, this conversion used a public source, according to which 1 GB of Word documents is equivalent to 65,000 pages. The requester claimed that the institution’s folders should include emails with attachments, scanned PDFs, images and spreadsheets, and suggested that the storage space used by these other documents should be much bigger, which would strongly diminish the total number of pages.

The Commissioner agrees with the requester that the folders mentioned by the institution likely include other types of records, such as emails and PDFs, and are probably not limited to Word documents. That said, it is unclear to her why the requester appears to assume that this would have a significant impact on the total number of pages. The institution provided the conversion rates of Word documents (65,000 pages per GB), which is, according to the source cited by the institution, in between the conversion rates of emails (100,000 pages per GB) and images (15,000 pages per GB). The Commissioner finds that the conversion rate used by the institution is sufficiently accurate to provide a reliable estimate of the number of pages.

Based on the above, the Commissioner finds that the access request would likely generate a number of pages in the million range. Acting on such a request would overburden a small institution like the institution in the present file. While institutions are required to devote sufficient resources to meet their obligations under the Act, it would be unreasonable to expect an institution of this size to allocate the resources necessary to respond to a request of this magnitude.

Whether an access request would overburden an institution requires an objective assessment of the facts. It varies depending on the scope, nature and the cumulative effect of the request, the effort required to act on it and the impact on the operations of the institution in relation to its size and resources. For instance, a small institution with limited capacity to respond to an access request may be overburdened in the circumstances that would not otherwise overburden a large institution. Based on the annual reports to Parliament referenced by the requester, the institution processed 12,842 pages in fiscal year 2024-2025, and 16,196 pages in 2023-2024. The access request at issue is estimated to generate records in the million-page range, far exceeding the institution’s typical annual processing volume. Responding to the request would require diverting a disproportionate amount of its resources to one single request, thereby severely impacting the right of access of other requesters.

The institution also mentioned that the information requested would be redacted to a large extent in virtue of subsections 16.1(1) and 19(1). The fact that the information will be largely redacted is not indicative that the request constitutes an abuse of the right of access. That being said, the time and efforts required to apply exemptions may be taken into consideration when determining whether the access request would overburden the institution. In the present case, the institution did not provide sufficient information for the Commissioner to determine that the application of exemptions would be especially burdensome. This, however, does not change the fact that the institution would have to process millions of pages of records, which the Commissioner finds sufficient to conclude that the request would overburden the institution.

Given the above, the Commissioner concludes that the access request at issue would overburden the institution and constitutes, for that reason, an abuse of the right of access.

Do the circumstances warrant that the Commissioner provides her approval to decline to act on the access request?

Given that the institution established that one of the requirements of subsection 6.1(1) applies to the access request, the Commissioner must now exercise her discretionary power to either grant or refuse the application.

In exercising her discretion, she has considered all relevant factors and circumstances, including the following.

Obligation to assist the requester

Subsection 4(2.1) sets out a general duty for institutions to assist requesters. The scope of this duty is broad—requiring institutions to make “every reasonable effort” to assist requesters with their access requests—and extends as far as it would be reasonable for institutions to provide assistance.

The duty to assist does not require institutions to take particular steps in all cases, but carrying out this obligation may include actions such as helping a requester clarify their access request to make it possible for the institution to identify responsive records and/or helping a requester narrow the scope of a request to facilitate a more timely response. What will constitute “every reasonable effort” to assist the requester with their request in any given situation will depend on the facts and circumstances, and must be assessed case by case.

The institution argued that it satisfied its duty to assist, as it made a series of attempts to assist the requester in refining the scope of the request. The institution mentioned the following attempts:

  • On June 15, 2026, the institution invited the requester to meet with the ATIP analyst and data analyst to see the type of readily available information the institution would have, but the meeting never took place.
  • On June 23, 2026, the institution sent a list of questions to the requestor to help them refine the scope of the request. A day later, the requestor provided a response but did not reduce the scope of their request.
  • On June 25, 2026, the institution asked the requestor if it would be possible to narrow the scope of the request given the substantial amount of documentation the request would generate. The requestor mentioned that they are in no position to narrow the scope of their request.
  • On July 9, 2026, the institution once again invited the requestor to discuss the details of the request, but the meeting never took place.
  • On July 10, 2026, the institution explained to the requestor the substantial volume of records responsive for the request. The institution stated, as well, that it would be beneficial for the requestor to tell the institution the type of information they are seeking. The requestor replied to the email with a complaint to the OIC.

In their response to the application, the requester argued that the institution did not satisfy its duty to assist and mentioned, to support their view, that the institution did not “propose a defined alternative scope, a prioritized sequence, a phased release with a completion date, a fee or format arrangement, or a section 9 extension.”

It is unclear to the Commissioner what the requester meant by “defined alternative scope,” but she notes that the institution proposed different ways to reduce the scope of the request. The requester even acknowledged this when they mentioned that the institution offered to “focus on a specific institution, a particular issue, or a section of the [act]” The Commissioner finds it unreasonable to expect the institution to define an alternative scope on behalf of the requester, who, in this case, repeatedly failed to identify the subject matter of the information they were seeking.

As for the prioritized sequence, phased release, fee and format arrangement as well as a possible time extension, they would have no impact on the number of records and thus it would not have been reasonable to offer these options in the circumstances. The access request would have remained overly broad and would still overburden the institution.

Based on the above, the Commissioner concludes that the institution made every reasonable effort to assist the requester and satisfied its duty to assist prior to submitting its application.

Decision

The institution has established that the access request at issue meets the requirements of subsection 6.1(1) as it is an abuse of the right of access.

The circumstances warrant an exercise of the Commissioner’s discretionary power to authorize the institution to decline to act on this access request.

Therefore, the application is granted.

Date modified:
Submit a complaint