Archived [2008-11] – Investigator's Guide to Interpreting the Act
Information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It is not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards and has not been altered or updated since it was archived.
The Investigator’s Guide was removed from the website in April 2021 and is currently available solely for the above-mentioned activities.
We invite you to consult the Information Commissioner’s Guidance section where you will find up-to-date information on how we approach investigations and interpret the Access to Information Act.
In addition, the Information Commissioner posts final reports on her investigations on the website to provide guidance to both institutions and complainants. Using the database, you can sort through the decisions with the relevant sections of the Act.
Complaint: The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) excluded under section 68 newspaper articles from a response to a request as published information or material available for purchase.
Investigation: The OIC learned that the articles were protected by the Copyright Act and had been published by the respective copyright holders. The CHRC has obtained most of the articles through a subscription service agreement that restricts disclosure. In an effort to assist the requester, the CHRC sought the permission of the newspapers to disclose the articles.
Outcome: The CHRC released the articles published by the one company that responded to its request. Since all the other articles remained excluded, the CHRC provided the requester with a list containing the title, date published, newspaper and author of each article.
Information Commissioner’s position:
- When institutions exclude information under section 68 as being publicly available, they must show that the records can be obtained by other means, without the need for an access request.