The complainant alleged that the Department of Justice Canada (Justice) did not conduct a reasonable search in response to an access request under the Access to Information Act for documents related to a 2009 Ontario Regional Office workplace-based report compiled or prepared by a consultant. The complaint falls within paragraph 30(1)(a) of the Act.

Justice tasked the Regional Office and the Deputy Minister’s Office, both of which found no responsive records. The retention period for this kind of record is five years, and the request was made seven years past the disposition date. Justice concluded that, if the records did previously exist, they would have been destroyed.

Given the wording of the request, the OIC pursued the question of whether Justice would have been required to contact the consultant directly in order to conduct a reasonable search. Justice maintained its position that it would not have been reasonable to expect ATIP to task the consultant directly for the 2009 Report because: the business need was time limited due to the specific circumstances of the work conducted; copies of the records held or created under that contract should no longer be in the possession of any contractor; and the matter related to that contract was no longer active.

Accordingly, the OIC concludes that Justice conducted a reasonable search for records in response to the access request.

The complaint is not well founded.