Decisions

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.

The complainant alleged that Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has failed to provide records in response to an access request made under the Access to Information Act, regarding Contract Number PWG560229 awarded on April 10, 2017 relating to Health Protection Building Demolition – Prime Consulting Services.

In response to the access request, PSPC indicated that it could not identify any relevant records, under its control. The investigation found that while the subcontracts and related records were not in PSPC’s physical possession, they were under its control for the purposes of the Act. Therefore, the records should have been retrieved and processed in accordance with the Act.

The Information Commissioner recommended that the records be retrieved and that a response be provided to the complainant.

PSPC gave notice to the Commissioner that it would not implement the recommendations.

The complaint is well founded.

The complainant alleged that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) had improperly withheld information under paragraph 20(1)(c) (financial impact on a third party) of the Access to Information Act in response to an access request for records related to job creation estimates and estimated jobs maintained figures for projects that received assistance during a specific time period between 2011 and 2018.

The scope of the complaint was narrowed to information related to eleven (11) third parties.

Only one of the third parties, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (Toyota), provided representations in support of the exemption. However, neither Toyota nor ISED demonstrated that the information at issue met all of the requirements of the exemption.

The Information Commissioner recommended that ISED disclose all information at issue.

ISED gave notice that it would not fully implement the recommendation and maintains that some information related to Toyota would continue to be withheld pursuant to paragraph 20(1)(c).

The complaint is well founded.

In January of 2021, the Information Commissioner initiated a systemic investigation into Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) delayed responses to access requests. This investigation was prompted by the Office of the Information Commissioner’s (OIC) investigations conducted over a number of years, resulting in findings that LAC was not responding to access requests by the legislative deadlines, a trend that worsened during the pandemic.

The complaint is well founded since the investigation found that for the period under investigation, almost 80% of the requests completed by LAC did not comply with the timeframes set out in the Act.

In January 2022, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, as head of LAC was informed of the Commissioner’s findings. A total of ten (10) recommendations were made to the Minister and a response to the Commissioner’s recommendations was received in February 2022.

In April 2022, the Commissioner tabled a special report in Parliament pursuant to paragraph 39(1) of the Act. The special report sheds light on issues within LAC and also draws Parliament’s attention to two broader challenges facing Canada’s access to information system:

• the manner in which consultations on access requests are conducted between institutions; and
• the lack of a Government-wide framework for the declassification of records.

The complainant alleged that the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority had improperly withheld information under paragraph 18(b) (competitive position of government institutions, negotiations by government institutions), paragraph 18(d) (government financial interests, government of Canada’s ability to manage the economy, undue benefit to an individual), paragraph 20(1)(b) (confidential third-party financial, commercial, scientific or technical information) and paragraph 20(1)(d) (negotiations by a third party) of the Access to Information Act in response to an access request for records related to $103 million of funding from the National Trade Corridors Fund to be provided to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. The complaint falls within paragraph 30(1)(a) of the Act.

The institution did not demonstrate that all information it withheld under paragraphs 18(b) and (d) met the requirements of those exemptions.

The institution and third party did not demonstrate that the requirements of paragraphs 20(1)(b) and (d) were met for any of the withheld information.

The Information Commissioner ordered the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority to disclose all information withheld under paragraphs 20(1)(b) and (d) and disclose specifc information withheld under paragraphs 18(b) and (d).

The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority gave notice that it would implement the order.

The complaint is well founded.

The complainant alleged that the 2,280-day time taken by Department of Justice Canada (Justice) to respond to a request under the Access to Information Act is unreasonable.

Justice notified the complainant that the response would require an additional 2,280 days beyond the original 30 days pursuant to paragraphs 9(1)(a) and 9(1)(b) of the Act to complete the processing of the request.

Justice did not show that it met all the requirements of paragraph 9(1)(a), in particular it did not sufficiently justify the length of the extension claimed.

The Information Commissioner ordered the Minister of Justice to provide a final response forthwith.

Justice gave notice to the Commissioner that it would comply with her order and respond to the request forthwith.

The complaint is well founded.