The complainant alleged that Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) failed to conduct a reasonable search for records in response to an access request under the Access to Information Act for all communications including correspondence, briefing notes, emails in writing or electronic relating to the land claim of the Wood Mountain (Lakota) First Nation, from 2000 to 2020.

The OIC’s investigation confirmed that CIRNAC responded to the request with records dated from 2017 to 2020 but no records dated earlier than 2017. The OIC sought information from CIRNAC related to the program areas tasked to search for records and the parameters of the search. Initially, CIRNAC maintained that no records earlier than 2017 could be located.

The OIC noted records from the Wood Mountain First Nation’s initial claim in 2009 to the rejection of the claim in 2012 appeared to be missing. In response, after subsequent searches, CIRNAC informed the OIC that more records had been found.

The Information Commissioner ordered that CIRNAC complete the retrieval of the records identified by CIRNAC as responsive to the request and provide a new response to the complainant no later than 60 days after the effective date of the order. CIRNAC gave notice that it would implement the order.

The complaint is well founded.