ORDER P-343
Appeal P-910012
Ministry of the Solicitor General
ORDER
BACKGROUND:
The Ministry of the Solicitor General (the institution) received a request for access under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) to all information held by the institution relating to investigations pertaining to the requester. In particular, the requester sought access to information relating to his murder investigation and to his arson and fraud investigation.
The record which the institution identified as being responsive to the request consisted of 593 pages. A total of 282 pages were released to the appellant in their entirety. Access to the remaining 311 pages was denied, in whole or in part, pursuant to sections 14(1)(c) and (e), 14(2)(a), 15(b), 21(1)(f), 49(a) and/or 49(b) of the Act.
During the course of mediation, an additional 243 pages were identified by the institution as being responsive to the request. The institution released 201 of these pages to the appellant, and denied access to the other 42 pages, either in whole or in part, claiming sections 14(2)(a), 19, 21, 49(a) and/or 49(b) of the Act.
The requester appealed the institution's decision to deny access.
Further mediation of the appeal was not successful, and the matter proceeded to inquiry. Notice that an inquiry was being conducted to review the decision of the head was sent to the institution, the appellant and his solicitor, the Federal Department of Justice and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the R.C.M.P.). Written representations were received from the appellant's solicitor, the institution and the Department of Justice.
In its representations, the institution abandoned its claim under section 14(1)(c). The institution also altered its position with respect to the application of certain exemptions to specific pages of the record during the inquiry stage.
PRELIMINARY MATTERS:
Having reviewed the record, I find that the certain pages contain notes made by police officers with respect to matters other than those related to the appellant. I find that these pages, or those parts of pages which have not already been released to the appellant, are not responsive to the request and fall outside the scope of this appeal. These pages are:
1, 2, 5, 9, 18, 21, 25, 26, 28, 31, 47, 51, 52, 55, 62, 67, 68, 72-74, 76, 77, 79, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91-93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103-113, 115, 117-122, 124, 126-128, 130-136, 138, 140-149, 152-156, 160, 162-165, 170, 171, 175-178, 180, 181, 183-186, 189-197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 206, 207, 209-211 and 214.
Some parts of the remaining pages also contain similar non-responsive information, and I also find that these parts fall outside the scope of this appeal. Pages 188 and 208 fall into this category.
The institution did not claim any exemptions for pages 188 and 208. As far as page 188 is concerned, the institution found that most of the page contained information which fell outside the scope of the request, and released the rest of the page to the appellant. I have reviewed this page and find that one line (nine lines from the bottom), which the institution found to be outside the scope of the request, does relate to the arson investigation, and I will discuss the proper treatment of this line in my discussion of Issue A. Similarly, I find that three lines on page 208, which the institution found to be non-responsive, do relate to the appellant's request. No exemptions were claimed by the institution for these three lines, and my discussion of Issue A will address whether these lines contain any personal information, thereby raising the potential application of the section 21 mandatory exemption.
With respect to page 219B, the institution originally claimed sections 14(2)(a) and 15(b) as the basis for exempting the severed portion of this page, but withdrew these claims in its representations. I will consider the proper treatment of this page in the same manner as outlined above for page 208.
Finally, the record contains the following duplicate pages: 214 (415), 219B (222), 220 (223), 304 (318), 305 (319) and 306 (307, 335, 433). My order with respect to pages 214, 219B, 220, 304, 305 and 306 applies to their duplicates.
ISSUES:
The