Decisions

An institution submitted an application to the Information Commissioner for approval to decline to act on two requests for access to information under subsection 6.1(1) of the Access to Information Act. The institution stated that the access requests were vexatious and constituted an abuse of the right to make a request for access to records. The institution further submitted that it had met its duty to assist the requester in connection with the request.

The Commissioner found that the institution not only did not fulfill its duty to assist obligations under subsection 4(2.1) of the Act, but it also failed to establish that the requests were made in bad faith or were otherwise an abuse of the right to make a request.

The Commissioner denied the applications.

The complainant alleged that Shared Services Canada (SCC) has wrongfully refused to process an access request made under the Access to Information Act for records related to informal official language complaints.

SSC refused to process the access request as it did not believe it met the requirements of section 6 of the Act.

SSC asserted that responding to the access request as worded would require tasking every employee of the department to search for records, more than 8,300 individuals. In addition, the administrative burden placed on SSC to respond to the request would unreasonably conflict with core activities.  

The Information Commissioner did not agree, and ordered the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada to accept the access request as meeting the requirements of section 6 and to proceed accordingly.

SSC did not respond to the Commissioner’s initial report. It is therefore unknown whether SSC will implement the Commissioner’s order.

The complaint is well founded.

The complainant alleged that the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) had improperly withheld information under subsection 19(1) (personal information), paragraph 20(1)(b) (confidential third-party financial, commercial, scientific or technical information), paragraph 20(1)(c) (financial impact on a third party) and paragraph 20(1)(d) (negotiations by a third party) of the Access to Information Act. This was in response to an access request for information related to applications for funding from The Corporation of the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake (Niagara-on-the-Lake) between January 2020 and April 2021. The complaint falls within paragraph 30(1)(a) of the Act.

Neither the institution nor the third parties to whom the information relates provided evidence or representations demonstrating that the requirements of the exemptions were met.

The complaint is well founded.

The Information Commissioner ordered the FedDev Ontario to disclose all information at issue.

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario gave notice that it would fully implement the order.