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Document
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P-1292
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File #
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P-9600212
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Institution/HIC
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Ontario Insurance Commission
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Summary
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BACKGROUND: The Ontario Insurance Commission (the OIC) is responsible for establishing aroster of independent assessment centres called Designated Assessment Centres(DACs). The DACs are authorized to conduct independent assessments about anautomobile accident victim's injuries where there is a dispute between theaccident victim and his or her insurance company over entitlement to a specificbenefit. The Ministry of Finance, on behalf of the OIC, issued a Request for Tender(RFT) to select an organization to further develop and expand the assessmentprocess, the educational program and network of the DACs and to initiate asystem to monitor and evaluate the DACs. In response to the RFT, a namedcompany (the company) submitted a tender on January 26, 1995 which was acceptedby the OIC and resulted in a contract being signed between the OIC and thecompany. NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The OIC received a request under the Freedom of Information andProtection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for access to information pertaining to the contract awarded to thecompany, resulting from the RFT issued by the OIC. The OIC notified the company of the request pursuant to the affected partynotification provisions found in section 28 of the Act . The companyresponded to this notice, agreeing to the release of some of the information andindicating its objections to the disclosure of the remaining information. Therecords identified as being responsive to the request consist of the four-pagecontract with Schedules A and B, together with the actual proposal dated January26, 1995 which the company submitted to the OIC. The OIC disclosed the contract and Schedule A, in their entirety, togetherwith part of Schedule B. Access was denied to the remaining portions ofSchedule B and the proposal on the basis of the mandatory exemption found insection 17 of the Act . The requester appealed the decision to denyaccess. During mediation, the OIC indicated that it had identified additionalrecords, containing the resumes of the project team members, access to which wasdenied under section 21(1) of the Act . Some of this information is alsocontained on page 4 of the proposal. The appellant confirmed that he was notseeking access to the personal information of individuals and accordingly, thisinformation (the resumes and the relevant portion of page 4 of the proposal) isnot at issue. This office provided a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant, the company andthe OIC. Representations were received from all parties. RECORDS AT ISSUE In their representations, the company and the OIC indicate that they are nolonger relying on section 17 for the following records: the covering letterfrom the president of the company, the cover sheet for the proposal, certainparts of the proposal and the questions listed in Appendix 5.2 to the proposal. No other mandatory exemptions apply to this information and no discretionaryexemptions have been claimed by the OIC. Accordingly, I will order thisinformation to be disclosed in the order provisions below. The OIC has indicated that it is also withdrawing its claim to section 17for some but not all of the remaining records. However, because the company hasnot consented to the disclosure of these other records and because section 17 isa mandatory exemption, I will consider its application to all of the remainingrecords, which include the following: (1)RFT cover sheet (2)Table of contents (3)the remaining parts of the 14-page proposal (4)appendices title page (5)Appendix 5.1 containing references (6)Appendix 5.2 - 13 pages with responses In addition, the withheld portion of Schedule B is identical to parts ofpage 7 of the proposal. Therefore, my findings on this information will applyequally to the withheld portion of Schedule B. PRELIMINARY ISSUE: The appellant claims that the company is a public agency, funded by theWorkers Compensation Board (the WCB) and therefore, the third party exemption insection 17 cannot be used to withhold access to the records. In his representations, the appellant states that there are concernsregarding the role of the Accident Benefits Advisory Committee (the ABAC). Theappellant explains that the ABAC was appointed under section 7 of the InsuranceAct and pursuant to section 63(2) of O.Reg. 776/93 may "establishprocedures, standards and guidelines that shall be used by designated assessmentcentres in conducting assessments". The appellant states that the RFT wasnot widely advertised as it was not known to ABAC and he is of the view that theOIC may have circumvented its own ABAC. In my view, these concerns are notrelevant to the issue raised by the appellant - whether the company is a publicagency. In response to the appellant's claim, the OIC states that the company is acorporation without share capital, incorporated under the Corporations Act ,and is not authorized under any Ontario statute to perform any function onbehalf of any ministry or agency, board or commission of the Government ofOntario. The company confirms the above and clarifies that, while it does receivefunding from the WCB, it operates independently of the WCB. The company statesthat it is not a public agency nor is it an "institution" for thepurposes of the Act . With respect to its relationship with the OIC, thecompany states that it is a vendor of services for which the OIC pays a fee. I have reviewed the evidence before me and I am satisfied that the companyis not a public agency and is not an institution for the purposes of the Act . DISCUSSION: Section 17 of the Act states, in part: A head shall refuse to disclose a record that reveals a trade secret orscientific, technical, commercial, financial or labour relations information,supplied in confidence implicitly or explicitly, where the disclosure couldreasonably be expected to, (a)prejudice significantly the competitive position or interferesignificantly with the contractual or other negotiations of a person, group ofpersons, or organization; (b)result in similar information no longer being supplied to theinstitution where it is in the public interest that similar information continueto be so supplied; (c)result in undue loss or gain to any person, group, committee orfinancial institution or agency. For a record to qualify for exemption under this section, the partyresisting disclosure, in this case the OIC and/or the company, must satisfy eachpart of the following: 1.the record must reveal information that is a trade secret or scientific,technical, commercial, financial or labour relations information; and 2.the information must have been supplied to the OIC
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Mumtaz Jiwan
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Published
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Nov 14, 1996
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Type
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Order
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