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Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (Re), 2021 OIC 8

Date: 2021-03-18
OIC file number: 5819-00626
Institution file number: A-2019-00227

Summary

The complainant alleged that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) took an unreasonable extension of time under paragraph 9(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act to respond to an access request for information related to the Competition Bureau’s bread price-fixing investigation. ISED considered the expected complexity of the records, factored in the program area’s needs for gathering and processing the responsive records, and assessed the Access to Information and Privacy Office’s time needs to analyze and apply exemptions to a response that would include at least 75 million pages of records. The complaint is not well founded. The OIC invites ISED to consider disclosing any completed packages of records to the complainant, as they are completed.

Complaint

[1]      The complainant alleges that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) took an unreasonable extension of time of 1,460 days under paragraph 9(1)(a)of the Access to Information Act to respond to an access request for information related to the Competition Bureau’s bread price-fixing investigation.

Investigation

[2]      On July 11, 2019, ISED notified the complainant of the extension of time and that it would respond to the access request by July 10, 2023.

Paragraph 9(1)(a): extension of time due to volume of records

[3]      Paragraph 9(1)(a) allows institutions to extend the 30 days they have to respond to an access request when they can show the following:

  • the request is for a large number of records or requires searching through a large number of records;
  • meeting the 30-day deadline would unreasonably interfere with the institution’s operations; and
  • the extension of time is for a reasonable period, given the circumstances.

[4]      To claim the extension, institutions must notify the requester of the following no more than 30 days after receiving the access request:

  • they are extending under paragraph 9(1)(a) the time they have to respond to the access request;
  • the duration of the extension; and
  • the requester has the right to complain to the Information Commissioner about the extension.

Does the extension of time meet the requirements of paragraph 9(1)(a)?

[5]      According to ISED, more than 75 million pages of records fall within the scope of the access request. ISED also stated that it has to search a further 100 terabytes of information for relevant records. The Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) is satisfied that responding to the request involves both a large number of records and searching through a large number of records. As a result, ISED met both elements of the first requirement for extending the time it had to respond to the request under paragraph 9(1)(a).

[6]      As ISED noted, searching for and processing this volume of records, and responding to the access request within 30 days would have monopolized resources, including those of the program area, and severely interfered with the institution’s operations. Even if ISED had designated staff to work exclusively on this request every day, responding to it that quickly would have been virtually impossible.

[7]      The OIC is satisfied that meeting the original 30-day time limit to respond to the access request would have unreasonably interfered with ISED’s operations. Therefore, ISED met the second requirement for extending the time it had to respond to the request under paragraph 9(1)(a).

[8]      Based on ISED’s standard processing time of 1,000 pages of records per month, the estimated time to process and respond to the current request would have been considerably longer than 1,460 days.

[9]      Instead, to ensure the extension of time would be as short as possible, ISED factored in how long the program area said it would need to gather and produce the responsive records and how long the Access to Information and Privacy Office said it would need to analyze and apply exemptions to that many records. ISED also considered the expected complexity of the records.  

[10]    The OIC is satisfied that ISED applied sufficient rigour and logic as part of a serious effort to determine the duration of the extension of time, and that 1,460 days is reasonable and justified in the circumstances. As a result, ISED met the third requirement for extending the time it had to respond to the request under paragraph 9(1)(a).

Did the institution validly claim the extension of time?

[11]    ISED met the three requirements to claim the extension of time by sending a notice to the complainant containing the requisite information within 30 days after receiving the access request. Thus, the OIC is satisfied that ISED validly claimed the extension. The due date to respond to the request remains July 10, 2023.  

Result

[12]    The complaint is not well founded.

Section 41 of the Act provides a right to the complainant who receives this report to apply to the Federal Court for a review. The complainant must apply for this review within 35 business days after the date of this report and must serve a copy of the application for review to the relevant parties, as per section 43.

The OIC understands that the complainant has recently expressed some willingness to narrow the scope of the complaint. This could enable ISED to respond to the request before July 2023, although a considerable amount of processing time would still be required. In light of this, the OIC invites ISED to consider disclosing packages of records to the complainant as they are completed.

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