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The Ministry of the Attorney General (the Ministry) received a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) for access to records relating to three actions filed with the Ontario Court of Justice (General Division). In preparing its initial response to the request, the Ministry located a large number of responsive records and granted access to some of them. Other records were withheld from disclosure, either in whole or in part.
The requester appealed the denial of access. During mediation, the number of records at issue from the group initially discovered by the Ministry was considerably reduced. The appellant continues to seek access to 75 of these records. The Ministry has claimed that five of them are not subject to the Act by virtue of section 65(2)(b). In addition, the Ministry relies on the exemption in section 19 of the Act to deny access to the majority of these records, and on section 21 of the Act to deny access to others. Both sections 19 and 21 have been claimed for several records.
Further mediation was not successful and notice that an inquiry was being conducted to review the decision of the Ministry was sent to the appellant and the Ministry. Representations were received from both parties.
One of the issues identified by the appellant in his letter of appeal, and in his representations, was the adequacy of the Ministry's search for responsive records. Subsequent to the delivery of the first set of representations by the parties, the Ministry discovered another large group of responsive records. This entire group of records related to only one of the three actions, which has now been completed. The Ministry granted access to many of these records. The appellant reviewed the Ministry's index and decided that he was not interested in a number of these records to which access had been denied, and he continues to seek access to 24 of them. The Ministry has claimed the exemption in section 19 for all 24 of these records.
The appellant has advised the Appeals Officer that he is now satisfied with the Ministry's search and, accordingly, that is no longer an issue in this appeal.
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