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Document
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PO-1802
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File #
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PA-990254-1
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
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Summary
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BACKGROUND AND NATURE OF THE APPEAL : In January 1996, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (the Ministry) announced reforms to Ontario's long-term care system, including streamlining 74 Home Care and Placement Coordination programs into 43 Community Care Access Centres (CCAC's). According to the Ministry, the CCAC's were established as non-profit corporations which offer a single point of access for long-term care community support services and admission into publicly funded long-term care facilities. CCAC's will operate through commercial contracts with non-profit and for-profit service providers, selected through a competitive Request for Proposals process. A transition period of three years (1996-1999) was established in order to implement a fully competitive system of CCAC's. As part of this transition, the Ministry continued to contract for some services directly through community associations, groups, hospitals, etc. The Ministry received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for a copy of budget information for each service provider agency in the Manitoulin and Sudbury Districts which received funding from the Ministry's Long-Term Care Division during the fiscal years of 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99. The records relate to funding provided by the Ministry during the transition period, and consist of a form titled "Schedule 2 - Form 3" (Form 3). The Form 3 outlines the planned level of service for a given fiscal year for 26 service provider agencies (the affected parties). Information on the form is listed in separate columns for each service provider: type of service, unit, approved expenditures, number of units, unit cost, number served and average cost/client. The Ministry denied access to the records pursuant to sections 17(1)(a), (b) and (c) of the Act . The requester, now the appellant, appealed the Ministry's decision. During mediation, the appellant narrowed the scope of his request to the following information contained on the forms: • the name of the service provider; • each type of service provided; • the approved expenditure for each type of service; and • the number of units for each type of service. As a result, the rest of the information contained on the Form 3s no longer at issue. I sent a Notice of Inquiry initially to the Ministry and the 26 affected parties. I received representations from the Ministry and three affected parties. One affected party consented to disclosure of its information. I have decided that it is unnecessary for me to obtain representations from the appellant. In its representations, the Ministry states that it is willing to disclose the parts of the Form 3s containing the first three categories of the appellant's narrowed request. As far as the Ministry is concerned, only the number of units for each service listed on the Form 3s remains at issue. However, because section 17 is a mandatory exemption intended to protect third party commercial interests, and all affected parties have not consented to the level of disclosure proposed by the Ministry, I will assess the application of this exemption claim to the four parts of the Form 3 records covered by the scope of the appellant's request as narrowed during mediation. DISCUSSION: THIRD PARTY INFORMATION The Ministry claims that the records qualify for exemption pursuant to section 17(1) of the Act and two of the affected parties support this claim. Therefore, the onus is on the Ministry and the affected parties to establish the requirements of this exemption claim. Sections 17(1)(a), (b) and (c) of the Act state: A head shall refuse to disclose a record that reveals a trade secret or scientific, technical, commercial, financial or labour relations information, supplied in confidence implicitly or explicitly, where the disclosure could reasonably be expected to, (a) prejudice significantly the competitive position or interfere significantly with the contractual or other negotiations of a person, group of persons, or organization; (b) result in similar information no longer being supplied to the institution where it is in the public interest that similar information continue to be so supplied; (c) result in undue loss or gain to any person, group, committee or financial institution or agency; For the record to qualify for exemption under these sections, the appellant and the affected parties must satisfy each part of the following three-part test: the record must reveal information that is a trade secret or scientific, technical, commercial, financial or labour relations information; and the information must have been supplied to the Ministry in confidence, either implicitly or explicitly; and the prospect of disclosure of the record must give rise to a reasonable expectation that one of the harms specified in (a), (b) or (c) of subsection 17(1) will occur. [Order 36] In its decision upholding my Order P-373, the Court of Appeal for Ontario commented on the meaning of the three-part test articulated above, as follows: With respect to Part 1 of the test for exemption, the Commissioner adopted a meaning of the terms which is consistent with his previous orders, previous court decisions and dictionary meaning. His interpretation cannot be said to be unreasonable. With respect to Part 2, the records themselves do not reveal any information supplied by the employers on the various forms provided to the WCB. The records had been generated by the WCB based on data supplied by the employers. The Commissioner acted reasonably and in accordance with the language of the statute in determining that disclosure of the records would not reveal information supplied in confidence to the WCB by the employers. Lastly, as to Part 3, the use of the words "detailed and convincing" do not modify the interpretation of the exemption or change the standard of pro
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Tom Mitchinson
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Published
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Jul 10, 2000
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Type
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Order
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© Copyright
2013
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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