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Document
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PO-1915-F
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File #
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PA-990408-1
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of the Attorney General
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The appellant submitted a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) to the Ministry of the Attorney General (the Ministry) for access to information concerning proposed amendments to the Criminal Code regarding hate laws. The Ministry identified responsive records and advised the appellant by letter that it was granting partial access to these records. The Ministry enclosed records with this letter, portions of which were severed. The Ministry stated that it was denying access to the remaining records (approximately 2,502 pages) pursuant to sections 13, 15, 19 and 21 of the Act . The Ministry further stated: The exempt material consists of briefing materials, reports of various working groups and background material for working groups. Access to part of the records (where indicated on the enclosed documents) is denied pursuant to subsection 15(1)(b) of the Act as described above. In addition, some portions of the responsive records have been marked as not responsive (N/R) as they do not pertain to your request. The appellant appealed the Ministry's decision to this office. I sent a Notice of Inquiry setting out the issues in the appeal initially to the Ministry, which provided representations in response. I then sent the Notice of Inquiry, together with a copy of the Ministry's representations, to the appellant. The appellant did not provide representations in response. In my Interim Order PO-1891-I, I upheld, in part, the Ministry's decision to deny access to the records at issue. However, with respect to a certain group of records, I stated: . . . [S]ome of the records for which section 15 was claimed consist of materials either sent to or received from the City of Toronto and/or the former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto (the City). In my view, while they may fall within the scope of section 15(a) or (b) for other reasons, this exemption does not apply solely on the basis of the reasons articulated by the Ministry respecting relations between Ontario and the governments of Canada and other provinces and territories. In the circumstances, I have decided not to make a specific finding on the applicability of section 15 to these records, but will seek further representations from the City and the Ministry on this issue from the perspective of relations between the City and Ontario. These records are: Records 1276-1278, 1286-1290, 1291-1294, 1295-1304, 1381, 1382-1391, 1392-1394, 1395-1470, 1858-1863 I then sent a Supplementary Notice of Inquiry to the City and the Ministry seeking representations on these specific records. Both the City and the Ministry provided representations in response. I then sent these representations to the appellant, together with the Supplementary Notice of Inquiry, but I received no representations in response. In its representations, the City indicated that it had no objection to the disclosure of all of the records remaining at issue, with the exception of Records 1382-1391, which comprise a document entitled, "Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations Legal Sub-Committee: Notes for Discussion with the Ontario Solicitor and Attorney Generals and Minister of Citizenship on November 16, 1993." The Ministry adopts the position of the City in this regard. On this basis, I will order the Ministry to disclose the remaining records to the appellant, and only Records 1382-1391 are still at issue. DISCUSSION: RELATIONS WITH OTHER GOVERNMENTS Introduction Sections 15(a) and (b) read: A head may refuse to disclose a record where the disclosure could reasonably be expected to, (a) prejudice the conduct of intergovernmental relations by the Government of Ontario or an institution; (b) reveal information received in confidence from another government or its agencies by an institution; . . . . . and shall not disclose any such record without the prior approval of the Executive Council. The words "could reasonably be expected to" appear in the preamble of section 15, as well as in several other exemptions under the Act dealing with a wide variety of anticipated "harms". In the case of most of these exemptions, in order to establish that the particular harm in question "could reasonably be expected" to result from disclosure of a record, the party with the burden of proof must provide "detailed and convincing" evidence to establish a "reasonable expectation of probable harm" [see Order P-373, two court decisions on judicial review of that order in Ontario (Workers' Compensation Board) v. Ontario (Assistant Information and Privacy Commissioner) (1998), 41 O.R. (3d) 464 at 476 (C.A.), reversing (1995), 23 O.R. (3d) 31 at 40 (Div. Ct.), and Ontario (Minister of Labour) v. Big Canoe , [1999] O.J. No. 4560 (C.A.), affirming (June 2, 1998), Toronto Doc. 28/98 (Div. Ct.)]. In Order 69, former Commissioner Sidney Linden held that a municipality is not a government for the purposes of section 15 of the Act . In this order, the former Commissioner states: In my view, for an exemption under either subsection 15(a) or (b) to apply, I must first determine if a municipality is a government for the purposes of section 15 of this Act . An examination of the meaning of the word "municipality" in the context of the Act itself is a necessary starting point to making this determination. In subsection 2(1) of the Act , the definition of "institution" encompasses a municipality. In subsection 15(b), the pertinent phrase used is "another government". If a municipality is an institution for the purposes of the Act , it would be contrary to the wording of the Act to extend the meaning of "another government" to include "municipality" without specific statutory direction. A plain reading of su
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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David Goodis
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Published
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Jun 22, 2001
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Type
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Order – Final
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