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Document
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PO-1947-F
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File #
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PA-000129-1
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Citizenship
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: This is my final order with respect to the outstanding issues from Order PO-1897-I. BACKGROUND: The requester (now the appellant) had sought access to "all reports, correspondence, and/or briefing notes originating from or received by Tourism Minister Cam Jackson relating to municipal restructuring over the past two years, 1998 and 1999". Subsequently, the request was clarified and the appellant (a journalist with a newspaper) confirmed that copies of correspondence addressed to other individuals and not Minister Jackson were not to be included. The Ministry of Tourism (MOT) (which became the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Recreation in February, 2001) conducted a search in response to the request. By its decision letter and attached "Index of Records", it indicated that it had located 21 records. It provided access to some of the records, with severances, and denied access to the rest. The appellant appealed the MOT's decision to deny access to some of the records in their entirety. During the course of mediation, some issues were narrowed or clarified. The MOT took the position that the records in dispute are not in its custody or under its control within the meaning of section 10(1) of the Act . The appellant disagreed, and also asserted that the Ministry had failed to conduct a reasonable search for records responsive to her request. The appellant believed that there should be more records than those identified on the issue of municipal restructuring, given that she requested records for a two-year period, and given that Minister Jackson is the Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Burlington and also a Cabinet representative for the Hamilton-Wentworth and Halton areas. The MOT'S position was that the scope of the appellant's request was limited to Minister Jackson's role as Minister of Tourism and did not relate to any additional roles he may or may not play within Cabinet. In Order PO-1897-I, I determined that the MOT, by then known as the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Recreation (MOTCR) unilaterally narrowed the scope of the request and I ordered it to conduct a further search. Specifically, I ordered it to conduct a search for records in accordance with the plain meaning of the request, which covers records of the Minister received or sent in any capacity. I deferred a decision on the question of whether the Ministry has custody and control of the records at issue until the results of a further search were known. In that decision, I also noted that Minister Jackson is no longer the Minister of Tourism, and raised the possible application of section 25(1) of the Act (transfer of a request). Following my order, several events occurred. The appellant was informed that the request was transferred to the Ministry of Citizenship (MOC) because Minister Jackson had been appointed Minister of Citizenship on February 8, 2001. A further search for responsive records was conducted. Information about this search was provided to the appellant, and an affidavit providing details of this search was forwarded to me. The affidavit provided by the Ministry was sent to the appellant, who was invited to make representations on the outstanding issues in the appeal. The appellant has provided no further representations on the appeal, beyond those submitted initially. DISCUSSION: PRELIMINARY MATTER: Following the issuance of my interim order, I also received a letter from the former Freedom of Information Coordinator (the FOIC) with the Ministry of Tourism. In this letter, the former FOIC requests that I reconsider my finding in the interim order that the Ministry of Tourism had unilaterally narrowed the scope of the appellant's request, and "clarify that the Ministry did not narrow the scope of the search to exclude records relating to other roles of the Minister unrelated to Tourism." The basis of the request is that there was a misunderstanding about the scope of the original search for records. This correspondence was also shared with the appellant, who has not sent any response to it. Essentially, the former FOIC submits that the position of the Ministry of Tourism in relation to the issue of the scope of the request was misunderstood, leading to my finding that it had unilaterally narrowed the scope of that request. Neither the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Recreation nor the Ministry of Citizenship has taken issue with the direction to conduct a further search, and as I have indicated above, a further search was conducted by the latter ministry. On my review, I am satisfied that there was a reasonable basis in the material that was before me at the time of the interim order for the findings that I made in that order. However, having regard to the submissions made to me more recently, it does appear that a lack of clarity in some of those materials has led to an inadvertent misunderstanding on my part as to some of the facts of this appeal. I am satisfied that had I understood the institution's position in the way it had intended, I would not have found that it had "unilaterally and without justification narrowed the scope of the appellant's request." That finding, and that part of the interim order, is therefore flawed, and I clarify my finding accordingly. As I have indicated, the ministries have not, however, asked for reconsideration of my direction to conduct a further search and have indeed provided me with evidence about a further search. There is no purpose therefore in revisiting that direction, and I will now consider whether the Ministry to whom this request has been transferred has conducted a reasonable search for responsive records, as required by section 24 of the Act. REASONABLE SEARCH: I have set out in my interim order the legal framework for this issue, and it is not necessary to repeat it here. The newspaper articles submitted by the appellant rely on unidentified sources to describe some of Minister Jackson's actions on municipal restructuring. Although the information is second-hand, it raised a question about the possible existence of more records. Some of the records themselves also raised a question about the possible existence of more records, since they demonstrate that discussions on the issue of municipal restructuring were taking place within different areas of th
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Sherry Liang
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Published
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Sep 13, 2001
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Type
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Order – Final
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