Complaint: The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) withheld in their entirety all staff disciplinary investigation reports produced in its Pacific Region over two years, citing subsection 19(1).

Investigation: Upon reviewing CSC’s file on its processing of the request, it became clear that access officials had, instead of retrieving the records, only reviewed samples of similar records. The OIC determined, after examining the samples, that CSC could have removed certain details that would have identified individuals and released the remaining information.

Outcome: The complaint was well founded, but the requester did not receive the requested records, since CSC had disposed of them.

Information Commissioner’s position:

• CSC failed to properly respond to the request. It did not retrieve the records, did not produce the records in response to the OIC’s request to see them and disposed of the them, despite being aware of the investigation and of requests to be provided with copies.
• As such, CSC wholly failed in its duty to assist the requester and irremediably harmed the requester’s rights.