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The Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations (the Ministry) received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) for copies of the "MCCR ONBIS Database" (the ONBIS database) and the "MCCR NUANS Database". The second part of the request was later clarified to mean a copy of the magnetic tape containing the information which is supplied by the Ministry to the company that operates NUANS (the NUANS tape).
The Ministry denied access to these records based on the exemption contained in section 22(a) of the Act (information published or available to the public).
The Ministry informed the requester that the information contained on the ONBIS database is available on a record-by-record search basis at the Ministry's Companies Branch. The fee for each search is $8. As far as the NUANS tape is concerned, the Ministry advised the requester that it was also available from the same Branch, free-of-charge, through the electronic COM Index. Alternatively, the requester could purchase a copy of registrations filed during a particular week from Publications Ontario, for a pre-set fee.
The requester appealed the Ministry's decision.
Within the 35-day period provided in the Confirmation of Appeal for raising additional discretionary exemptions, the Ministry also claimed the following exemptions for both the ONBIS database and the NUANS tape:
valuable government information - section 18(1)(a)
economic and other government interests - sections 18(1)(c), (d) and (g)
This office provided a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant and the Ministry. Written and oral representations were received from both parties. In its representations, the Ministry withdrew the section 18(1)(g) exemption claim.
After receiving the submissions, I determined that there were additional issues on which I required further representations from the parties. Accordingly, I sent a Supplementary Notice of Inquiry to the two original parties. In addition, the company that operates NUANS (the NUANS contractor) was notified and provided with both the Supplementary Notice of Inquiry and the original Notice sent to the Ministry and the appellant. The NUANS contractor forwarded these materials to Industry Canada (the federal government department). Industry Canada responded to this notification. Supplementary representations were also received from the Ministry.
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