Complaint: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) said that the only way it could release a list of the occupants of the Government of Canada Official Guest House over two years would be to create a record from various information sources, but that there was no system that could do so.

Investigation: The OIC pointed out that if various sources contained information that was responsive to the request, and if those sources could produce machine-readable records, then under subsection 4(3), DFAIT was legally obliged to produce the information.

Outcome: DFAIT collected the required records and disclosed the information the requester sought.

Information Commissioner’s position:

• Information pertaining to a request may not necessarily exist in a single record, yet may still be accessible via other sources under the control of the institution.
• Institutions are obliged—indeed, it is part of their legislated duty to assist—to take the necessary steps to provide access to that information.