Decisions

The complainant alleged that the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) had failed to perform a reasonable search for records in response to a request made under the Access to Information Act for all final decisions rendered pursuant to section 37 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) from January 2018 until June 2020. The complaint falls within paragraph 30(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act.

During the investigation, the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) learned that the IRB tasked the appropriate program areas with the retrieval of the requested records but the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) office had informed the Office of the Primary Interest (OPI) that only written decisions were being sought. This instruction ultimately reduced the scope of the request without the complainant’s approval. Despite the IRB’s justifications that audio recordings are only provided when specifically requested, the issue remained that audio recordings of final decisions fall within the scope of “all final decisions” and under the Act, a record means any documentary material, regardless of medium or form.

The Information Commissioner ordered that the IRB process all audio recordings within the scope of the request forthwith.

The IRB gave notice to the Commissioner that it would implement the order.

The complaint is well founded.

The complainant alleged that the extension of time the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) took under subsection 9(1) of the Access to Information Act to respond to an access request was unreasonable. The request was for all correspondence, including emails, Microsoft (MS) Teams messages, texts and phone messages, sent and received by Iain Stewart, between June 14 and June 21, 2021. The requester also specified that they would not “re-scope or limit” their request.

PHAC notified the complainant that, pursuant to paragraphs 9(1)(a) and 9(1)(b), it would require an additional 1,950 days to complete the processing of the request.

PHAC demonstrated that the time extensions were necessary and for a reasonable period, given the circumstances.

The complaint is not well founded.

The complainant alleged that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has 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 information related to the Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) program including the Total Repayment figures related to several projects.

The scope of the complaint was narrowed to information related to twenty-one (21) third parties.

Several third parties and ISED provided representations in support of the exemption. However, neither the third parties nor ISED demonstrated that the information at issue met all of the requirements of the exemption.

The Information Commissioner ordered ISED to disclose all information at issue.

ISED gave notice that it would implement the order.

The complaint is well founded.

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.