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Document
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P-1316
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File #
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P_9500647
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Finance
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The appellant made a request to the Ministry of Finance (the Ministry) underthe Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act )for electronic copies of the 1995 property assessment rolls for the region ofOttawa-Carleton. The appellant indicated that he understood the rolls wereavailable on nine-track computer tapes in "ASCII" format. The Ministry denied access to the requested record based on the followingexemption: information published or available - section 22(a) In its decision letter, the Ministry advised that the assessment roll for anindividual municipality in the Ottawa-Carleton region could be viewed at no costat the office of the clerk of the municipality. The Ministry also advised theappellant that he could purchase a copy of each roll directly from amunicipality or from the Ministry's Assessment Program. Further correspondencebetween the Ministry and the appellant indicates that the assessment informationfor all the municipalities in the Ottawa-Carleton region could be purchased oncomputer tape at an estimated cost of $1,700. The appellant appealed the Ministry's decision to charge $1,700 for thecomputer tape. He later clarified that he also wished to appeal the Ministry'sreliance on section 22(a) of the Act to deny access to the record. Mediation was not possible and a Notice of Inquiry was issued to theMinistry and the appellant. Representations were received from both parties. DISCUSSION: INFORMATION PUBLISHED OR AVAILABLE Section 22(a) of the Act states: A head may refuse to disclose a record where, the record or the information contained in the record has been publishedor is currently available to the public; This exemption is intended to provide an institution with the option ofreferring a requester to a publicly available source of information where thebalance of convenience favours this method of alternative access; it is notintended to be used in order to avoid an institution's obligations under the Act (Order P-1114). In order for a record to qualify for exemption under section 22(a), therecord, or the information contained in it, must either be published oravailable to members of the public generally, through a regularized system ofaccess, such as, for example, a public library or a government publicationscentre (Order P-327). Practically speaking, the Ministry proposed two ways for the appellant toobtain access to the requested information. The first was to view or purchasethe assessment rolls for each municipality at each municipality. The second wasto purchase a computer tape containing the assessment roll information for allthe municipalities in the Ottawa-Carleton region at an estimated cost of $1,700. Purchase/View Roll at each Municipality In its representations, the Ministry states that "While the requestershows no interest in a paper copy or mere access, ... the [ Act] issatisfied by these solutions." However, the Ministry then discusses thecosts related to obtaining a paper copy from each municipality and concludesthat, "At these costs, you can see that the electronic versions, offered bythe province are much cheaper." The appellant states that in order to obtain the assessment roll in hardcopy he would have to travel to 11 municipal offices and copy thousands of pagesof computer printouts. He contends that this is contrary to the balance ofconvenience test articulated in previous orders. The record which is responsive to the appellant's request is the compilationof assessment roll information from all the municipalities in the region ofOttawa-Carleton. In my view, referring the appellant to the individualmunicipalities will not satisfy the appellant's request. No one municipalityhas the compilation. Accordingly, the Ministry has failed to establish that therequested record or the information contained in the record is "publishedor available to the public" through this source. Therefore, the section22(a) exemption does not apply with respect to viewing or obtaining hard copiesof the assessment roll at each municipality. As a result of my finding that section 22(a) does not apply, it isunnecessary for me to address the question of balance of convenience. However,I would add that, in my view, sending an appellant to a number of sources toobtain disparate pieces of information which an institution holds in one recordis clearly a situation where the balance of convenience would favour theappellant. Purchase of Computer Tape from Ministry A computer tape containing assessment roll information for each municipalityin the Ottawa- Carleton region may be purchased from the Ministry forapproximately $1,700. It is clear that the computer tape responds to theappellant's request. In his representations, the appellant states that the information should bedisclosed in the public interest either at no cost, or for a fee that reflectsrecovery of the cost of reproducing the information. He maintains that theprice established by the Ministry is prohibitive, an impediment to publicinterest and contrary to the fee provisions of the Act . The appellantappears to be arguing that the fee provisions of the Act , including thediscretion to waive fees, should apply in the circumstances of this appealnotwithstanding the fact that the Ministry has claimed section 22(a) to exemptthe information from disclosure under the Act . In Order 159, I discussed the relationship between the fee structure set upin the Act and any fee structure associated with another source of theinformation. In that order, I took the position that directing an appellant toa court file where she would be required to pay a prescribed fee for retrievinga file and photocopying did not mean that the information was not "publiclyavailable". I stated: Support for the position I have taken can be found in an analysis of theway in which the Federal and various Provincial access legislation deals withpublicly available information, by McNairn and Woodbury in GovernmentInformation: Access and Privacy , De Boo, 1989. At page 2-24 the authorsstate: Other information for which there is already a system of public access inplace will be regarded as being available to the public. Someone who is seekingsuch information will normally be required to proceed in accordance with therules of that system. A person who puts in an access request for a deed toproperty or a list of directors in a company's information return, for example,will likely be instructed to visit the land or companies registry to locate andview the relevant document. A government institution is unlikely to undertake asearch for such a document when it has provided the facility for that to be doneby members o
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Tom Wright
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Published
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Dec 16, 1996
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Type
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Order
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2013
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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