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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The Ministry of the Attorney General (the Ministry) received a 13-part request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for access to records relating to the involvement of the Ministry's Office of the Children's Lawyer (the OCL) in a matter concerning the requester's son. The Ministry located records responsive to the request and granted access to a portion of them, in whole or in part. Access to the remaining records, or parts of records, was denied pursuant to the following exemptions contained in the Act : advice or recommendations - section 13(1) solicitor-client privilege - section 19 invasion of privacy - sections 21(1) and 49(b) discretion to refuse requester's own information - section 49(a) The requester, now the appellant, appealed the Ministry's decision to deny access to the records. In addition, the appellant submits that additional records responsive to Parts 3, 5 and 13 of his request should exist. During the mediation stage of the appeal, the Ministry located an additional ten pages of records and denied access to them, in their entirety, under sections 19, 21 and 49(a) and (b). As further mediation was not possible, the matter was referred to the adjudication stage of the appeal process. I decided to seek the representations of the Ministry, initially. The Ministry provided submissions, the non-confidential portions of which were shared with the appellant, who also provided me with representations. The appellant's submissions were then provided to the Ministry, in part, and the Ministry made additional reply representations. The records at issue consist of certain hand-written notes (pages 1-1 to 1-6), a Record of Telephone Conversation (page 3), an internal document created by the OCL entitled "General Steps to Take When Starting a Case" (pages 5-1 to 5-4), a further Record of Telephone Conversation (pages 7-1 to 7-3), a Memorandum to File (pages 7-4 to 7-5), another Record of Telephone Conversation (page 7-6) and additional handwritten notes (pages 7-7 to 7-10). I note that a complete copy of Record 1-1 is included in the appellant's representations as Exhibit G. As the appellant has already received access to this record through legitimate means, no useful purpose would be served by making a determination as to whether or not this document is in fact exempt under sections 19 and 49(a). I will not, accordingly, address the application of the exemptions claimed to Record 1-1. DISCUSSION: PERSONAL INFORMATION The personal privacy exemptions in section 49 apply only to information which qualifies as "personal information", as defined in section 2(1) of the Act, which reads: "personal information" means recorded information about an identifiable individual, including, (a) information relating to the race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation or marital or family status of the individual, (b) information relating to the education or the medical, psychiatric, psychological, criminal or employment history of the individual or information relating to financial transactions in which the individual has been involved, (c) any identifying number, symbol or other particular assigned to the individual, (d) the address, telephone number, fingerprints or blood type of the individual, (e) the personal opinions or views of the individual except where they relate to another individual, (f) correspondence sent to an institution by the individual that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature, and replies to that correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence, (g) the views or opinions of another individual about the individual, and (h) the individual's name where it appears with other personal information relating to the individual or where the disclosure of the name would reveal other personal information about the individual; The Ministry submits that the majority of the records contain only the personal information of the appellant's child and his former wife and that Records 7-1, 7-3 and 7-10 also contain references to the appellant. The Ministry also agrees that Record 5-1 to 5-4 does not contain any personal information of any sort. The appellant simply asserts that the records do not contain any personal information and ought to be disclosed. Based on my review of the records, I find that Records 1-2 to 1-6, 3 and 7-1 to 7-10 contain the personal information of the appellant's son and his former wife. In addition, Records 1-2 to 1-6, 7-1, 7-3 and 7-7 to 7-10 also contain the personal information of the appellant. I agree with the position taken by the Ministry that Record 5-1 to 5-4 does not contain any personal information within the meaning of that term in section 2(1). DISCRETION TO REFUSE REQUESTER'S OWN INFORMATION Section 47(1) of the Act gives individuals a general right of access to their own personal information held by an institution. Section 49 provides a number of exceptions to this general right of access. Under section 49(a) of the Act , the Ministry has the discretion to deny an individual access to their own personal information in instances where the exemptions in sections 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 , 20 or 22 would apply to the disclosure of that information. [my emphasis] The Ministry has claimed the application of section 19 to all of the records remaining at issue. Because I have found that Records 1-1 to 1-6, 7-1, 7-3 and 7-7 to 7-10 contain the personal information of the appellant, I will examine the application of the solicitor-client exemption, in the context of section 49(a). SOLICITOR-CLIENT PRIVILEGE Introduction As noted above, the Ministry takes the position that all of the records remaining at issue are exempt from disclosure under the discretionary exemption in section 19, which reads: <
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