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Document
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M-947
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Institution/HIC
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Appeals M-9600386, M-9600387, M-9600388, M-9600389,M-9600390, M-9600391, M-96500392, M-9600393, M-9600394, M-9600395, M-9600396, M-9600397, M-9600398, M-9600399, M-9600400, M-9600401, M-9600402 and M-9600403, M-9500118, M-9500778, M-9600056, M-960
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Summary
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order will resolve 26 appeals filed by the appellant from decisions ofthe City of Mississauga (the City) under the Municipal Freedom ofInformation and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ). These appealsfall into the following categories: (1)Three appeals relate to the City's decisions of September 18,1995 not to open new files with respect to the appellant's requests. The City stated that these three requests, dated September 13, 1995, were thesame as those previously submitted by the appellant. On May 21, 1996, theappellant appealed these three decisions as deemed refusals. (2)One appeal, filed on December 19, 1995, relates to the decision of theCity dated December 14, 1995 in response to one request dated November17, 1995 and five requests dated November 10, 1995. In this decision, the Cityresponded by stating that the requests constituted an abuse of process. TheCity advised the appellant that, until this office had disposed of theappellant's outstanding appeals, it would not process any further requests. After the appeals were resolved, the City stated that it would then process onerequest at a time. (3)Fourteen of the appeals relate to a decision issued by the City on October 10, 1996 related to requests submitted to the Cityduring the period of September 29, 1995 to August 7, 1996. In each case, theCity's decision was to deny access to the requested records on the basis thatthe head was of the opinion that the requests were frivolous or vexatiouspursuant to sections 4.1 and 20.1(1) of the Act . Appeals from thesedecisions were filed by the appellant on December 20, 1996. (4)One appeal relates to the City's refusal to issue a decision letter withrespect to the appellant's request of November 9, 1995. The City has indicatedthat it did not do so, as the appellant requested the same information from oneof its program areas, outside of the Act (5)The balance of the appeals relate to requests submitted by the appellantfor access to specific records, to a confirmation of where the file was held inthe City's records management system, as well as by whom. In its decisionletters, issued between January 12, 1995 and January 4, 1996, theCity did not respond to those portions of the requests regarding the locationsof the records and by whom they were held. The appellant appealed thesedecisions, raising the issue of the City's failure to respond to the portions ofthe requests identified above. To summarize, the appeals described in categories (1), (4) and (5) aredeemed refusals in the sense that the City either refused to open a file or didnot, in the appellant's view, respond to all portions of the requests. Thecategory (2) appeals flow from a decision that the requests are an abuse ofprocess. The category (3) appeals stem from a decision that the requests arefrivolous or vexatious. The appellant disputes the City's characterization of his requests as anabuse of process. He also disputes the City's claim that his requests arefrivolous or vexatious. He further claims that the City should comply with theprovisions of the Act and process his requests as it does for otherindividuals using the Act . THE INQUIRY PROCESS: None of the above-described appeals could be resolved by mediation. Accordingly, on January 6, 1997, a Confirmation of Appeal/Notice of Inquiry (theNotice) was sent to the City and the appellant advising the parties that aninquiry would be conducted by way of written and oral representations. The Notices set out the three-stage process to be followed in the inquiry. The parties were advised that the first stage would involve writtenrepresentations which would be shared with the other party. The second stagewould involve supplementary written representations in response to those issuesraised in the initial set of submissions. The supplementary writtenrepresentations would also be shared with the other party. The third stage ofthe inquiry would consist of oral representations from each party in response tothe issues raised in the written submissions. A schedule for the timing of thereceipt of the written and oral submissions was included in the Notices. The deadlines for the receipt, by this office, of the writtenrepresentations and supplementary written representations were January 27 andFebruary 25, respectively. The parties were advised that arrangements for thetime and place for oral representations were to be made through the Registrar'soffice. During the inquiry, the appellant proposed settlement of all of his appeals. The City responded by outlining the circumstances in which it would agree tosettle the appeals without proceeding with the inquiry. These matters could notbe settled, so the inquiry proceeded. The City requested and was granted an extension for the provision of itsfirst set of representations from January 27 until February 10. The parties'representations were subsequently exchanged as set out in the Notice. Theappellant requested an extension of at least a month for submitting hissupplementary written representations. I agreed that the supplementaryrepresentations of both parties could be provided by March 10. Thesupplementary representations were then exchanged. On March 18, the Registrar contacted the appellant with a list of 16 datesand times, from March 26 to April 8, for him to present his oralrepresentations. The appellant advised this office that all of the dates were "toosoon" and that he would "... not have any time until after April 15 toeven consider attending Orals". He asked the Registrar if he could attendin the evening. On April 2, I wrote the appellant advising that this office schedules oralrepresentations in the morning and afternoon and that he would have three hoursduring which to present his submissions. The Registrar called the appellant onApril 9 to attempt to schedule a date and time for his oral submissions. He wasgiven eight choices from April 28 to May 2. The appellant maintained that therewere several outstanding issues regarding the inquiry to which I should respondprior to his agreeing to a date for the oral submissions. Accordingly, theappellant would not arrange a date at that time. On April 11, I again wrote the appellant confirming the availability of theeight time slots and advising him to contact the Registrar on or before April 25if he intended to present oral submissions. I indicated to him that he did nothave t
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Legislation
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MFIPPA
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4(1)(b)
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43(3)
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Section 20.1
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Subject Index
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Published
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Jun 04, 1997
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Type
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Order
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