The complainant alleged that Library and Archives Canada (LAC) did not conduct a reasonable search in response to a request for an Index containing information about all the military personnel who served in World War II.

The investigation determined that LAC did not have the index sought by the complainant. LAC explained that World War II personnel records contained not only information on personnel who served in World War II, but also those who served in Korea and other military deployments until 1971. These records are paper-based, and were neither digitized nor used to create an electronic database from which a complete list of World War II personnel could be obtained.

While LAC’s access to information responses to specific queries may have given the false impression to the requester that an index of World War II personnel exists, LAC does not in fact possess a complete index of the number of Canadians who served in World War II.

The complaint is not well founded.