The complainant alleged that Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) did not respond to their access request for a list of all COVID-19-related contracts between January 1, 2020, and April 4, 2020, within the time limit set out in section 7 of the Access to Information Act. PSPC indicated that part of the reason for its delay in responding to the request was that it had been placed on hold due to measures taken to stop the spread of COVID-19. The Information Commissioner has already indicated that, under the Act,an institution cannot suspend the processing of these access requests because of the pandemic. The Office of the Information Commissioner concludes that PSPC failed to respond to the request within the time limit set out in section 7 of the Act and is therefore deemed to have refused to give access to the requested records under subsection 10(3). PSPC responded to the request on April 1, 2021. The complaint is well founded.