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Document
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MO-1476
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Institution/HIC
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City of Toronto
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The City of Toronto (the City) received a request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for a copy of "records pertaining to any polling done for the Mayor's office or the CAO's office during the last twelve months by any city department, including but not exclusive to police helicopters, traffic, TTC [Toronto Transit Commission] and the Olympics". Pursuant to section 21(1)(a) of the Act , the City notified the author of the responsive records before responding to the requester, providing that party an opportunity to identify any concerns regarding disclosure. After receiving the author's response, the City decided to disclose the records to the requester, and advised the author accordingly. The author (now the appellant) appealed the City's decision. This appeal was not resolved through mediation, so it proceeded to the Adjudication stage. I sent a Notice of Inquiry to the appellant initially, inviting representations on the issues raised in the appeal. The appellant submitted representations, the non-confidential portions of which were shared with the City and the requester. Only the City submitted representations in response. I then shared these representations with the appellant, and received further representations in reply. RECORDS: The records at issue consist of: - portions of a [named] report authored by the appellant that deal with issues relating to the City, specifically consisting of an executive summary, statistical tables, and a section titled "Focus on the Greater Toronto Area"; - portions of a second [named] report authored by the appellant that deal with issues relating to the City, specifically consisting of an executive summary, statistical tables, sections titled "Focus on the Greater Toronto Area" and "The Olympic Games Bid"; and - a letter dated November 23, 2000 from the appellant to the City that summarizes the results of one of the reports. DISCUSSION: RESPONSIVENESS OF THE RECORD/SCOPE OF THE REQUEST As a preliminary matter, the appellant takes the position that the records are not responsive to the request. In its initial representations, the appellant states: … none of the … records that the City wishes to release actually pertains to polling done "for the Mayor's office or the CAO's office". [The syndicated survey questions] are conceived and designed entirely by [the appellant's] researchers without instruction from any one subscriber and in this case, specifically without instruction from the City of Toronto. Moreover, the results are not made available exclusively to any one client such as the City of Toronto. The results are made available to a number of different subscribers in the public and private sectors, all of whom pay to be subscribers to the report and to enjoy access to the information provided in the report. The appellant also identifies that the letter to the City simply summarizes the data found in the accompanying report, and therefore does not qualify as "polling data" obtained for the Mayor's office or for the CAO's office. The City takes the position that reports were purchased by a division of the CAO's office, and states: … while the survey results contained in the [reports] were not made exclusively available to the City, these records are, nonetheless, polling records to which the City's CAO's Office had subscribed during the time period specified by the requester. The City also submits that the letter constitutes a "Toronto specific memo" that was produced exclusively for the City pursuant to an agreement, and was purchased by the City for a fee. Finally, the City states that it contacted the requester twice during the course of responding to the request, and received confirmation that he was interested in receiving access to the identified records. In its reply representations, the appellant submits that the records are not responsive because they were not prepared exclusively for the City and, as such, by definition do not qualify as polling done for the Mayor's office or the CAO's office. Previous orders of the Commissioner have established that in order to be responsive, a record must be "reasonably related" to the request: In my view, the need for an institution to determine which documents are relevant to a request is a fundamental first step in responding to a request. It is an integral part of any decision by a head. The request itself sets out the boundaries of relevancy and circumscribes the records that will ultimately be identified as being responsive to the request. I am of the view that, in the context of freedom of information legislation, "relevancy" must mean "responsiveness." That is, by asking whether information is "relevant" to a request, one is really asking whether it is "responsive" to a request. While it is admittedly difficult to provide a precise definition of "relevancy" or "responsiveness," I believe that the term describes anything that is reasonably related to the request [Order P-880; see also Order P-1051]. I agree with the above, and must therefore determine whether the records are reasonably related to the request. Requesters are not always aware of precisely what records are held by an institution. Section 17(1) of the Act requires requesters to provide as much detail as possible in order to help institutions identify responsive records, and section 17(2) imposes a corresponding duty on institutions to assist requesters in clarifying requests in order to be in a position to undertake appropriate search activities. In this case, the request received by the City was quite clear. The requester was seeking access to polling results over a defined period of time and on some specific topics. He also indicated that the polls he is looking for were done for the Mayor's Office or CAO's office. In order to resolve any ambiguities, the City contacted the requester to ensure a clear understanding of the scope of the request, and then proceeded to identi
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Published
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Oct 16, 2001
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Type
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Order
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2013
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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