ORDER P-1052
Appeals P‑9400294, P‑9400297, P‑9400298 and P‑9400299
Ministry of Community and Social Services
BACKGROUND:
This order arises from the decision of former Assistant Commissioner Irwin Glasberg in Order P‑965. In that order, the former Assistant Commissioner granted a reconsideration request submitted by the Ministry of the Attorney General (the AG). The reconsideration request pertained to Order P-902, issued by Inquiry Officer Anita Fineberg. The access requests which were dealt with in Order P-902 were submitted to the Ministry of Community and Social Services (COMSOC).
The basis for the reconsideration request was that the AG should have been notified as an affected party under section 50(3) of the Act. In Order P-965, former Assistant Commissioner Glasberg rejected that contention, holding that the Crown must speak with one voice in access appeals. However, he did agree to permit COMSOC to make additional representations after consultation with the AG. The representations were required to be submitted on or before August 18, 1995, or the reconsideration request would be deemed to have been abandoned. The representations were, in fact, received on August 18, 1995. Accordingly, the reconsideration has proceeded, and it will be resolved by this order.
I will now provide some background information about the requests themselves, the records which remain at issue, the exemptions to be considered and some other organizational matters pertaining to the approach taken in this order.
The appellant filed a series of requests with COMSOC under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) where he sought information on the funding provided to the Grandview Survivors Support Group and/or individual members of that group. The Grandview Survivors Support Group is an organization of women who had previously been wards of the Grandview Training School for Girls. This group (whose members are sometimes collectively and/or individually referred to as "Grandview survivors" in this order) has been involved in negotiations with the provincial government to receive compensation for incidents which occurred while its members were detained at Grandview.
COMSOC located over 300 records which were responsive to the requests. It decided not to release any of these documents to the appellant based on the application of seven exemptions contained in the Act. COMSOC took the position that these exemptions applied to each of the records at issue. The appellant appealed this denial of access to the Commissioner's office. This resulted in the opening of six appeal files (namely, Appeals P-9400294 through P-9400299).
On April 10, 1995, Inquiry Officer Anita Fineberg issued Order P-902, where she considered the issues raised in these appeals. Inquiry Officer Fineberg upheld COMSOC's decision to withhold 30 of the records at issue, either in whole or in part. She directed, however, that COMSOC disclose the remaining documents (or non-exempt portions) to the appellant no later than May 10, 1995.
Appeals P-9400295 and P-9400296 pertained only to the issue of whether additional records existed. Since the reconsideration request referred only to the decisions relating to exemptions claimed for records already identified, it does not relate to these two appeals. Therefore, the provisions of Order P-902 relating to those two appeals are not part of this reconsideration, and will not be mentioned further in this order.
That leaves appeals P-9400294, P-9400297, P-9400298 and P-9400299. Prior to making its submissions on this reconsideration, COMSOC altered its position with respect to a number of records and granted further access. COMSOC states that, taking these further disclosures into account, only Appeal P-9400299 has records outstanding. However, COMSOC has also argued that Record 5(1)-(2), which was at issue in Appeal P-9400294, is non-responsive. I will consider this record in my discussion of "Responsiveness of Records", below. Other than this record, this order deals exclusively with the remaining records at issue from Appeal P-9400299.
The records which remain at issue, and the exemptions which have been claimed for them, are listed in Appendix "A", attached to this order. This index only includes records actually at issue in this reconsideration (i.e. it does not include those excluded in the discussions under the headings "Records No Longer at Issue" and "Responsiveness of Records", below). The records at issue and the exemptions considered for each are based on COMSOC's representations in this reconsideration, and in particular, on the listing of records and exemptions in Appendix "B" to those representations.
The form of the record numbers which I have used throughout this order, including Appendix "A", requires an explanation. For ease of reference, I have used COMSOC's numbering system, which sometimes groups more than one record under a single record number. However, my discussion in this order refers to complete, discrete records, regardless of whether COMSOC's numbering system groups them with other records. To accomplish this, record numbers in this order include page references, in parentheses, to specify which record is under discussion (e.g. "Record 2(1)-(4)"). To assist with comparisons to Order P-902, it should be noted that the record numbers used here correspond to those appearing in the second column of Appendix "A" attached to Order P-902.
Appendix "A" to the present order also notes duplicate record numbers in square brackets. I will not refer to the duplicates in this order because, in my view, no purpose would be served by considering a second copy of a document already at issue under another number.
The exemptions to be considered in this order are as follows:
∙ cabinet records - section 12
∙ advice to government - section 13(1)
∙ solicitor-client privilege - section 19
∙ invasion of privacy - section 21(1).
COMSOC also claims that a number of records are not responsive to the request.
The discussion in this order will be organized by exemption. In some cases, more than one exemption has been claimed for a record. Where I find that an exemption applies to such a record, or part of it, I will not refer to the record or part again in any subsequent discussion of another exemption which has also been claimed for