CYFSA Decision 28

The complainant asked the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa for all its records of a late 2021 investigation involving her, her children and the children’s father. The CAS partially released responsive records to the complainant, withholding portions containing information about the father and other individuals. The CAS withheld those portions based on its determination that the records were not dedicated primarily to the provision of a service to the complainant and her children, and she was not entitled to access personal information about other individuals without their consent or a court order. The complainant asked the IPC to review the CAS’s decision, arguing that more information from the records should be released to her and that the CAS should have additional records responsive to her request.
In this decision, the adjudicator agrees with the CAS that the records are dedicated primarily to the provision of a service to the entire family, including the children’s father. She upholds the CAS’s decision to withhold personal information of individuals other than the complainant and her children. However, she finds that two records contain a small amount of personal information of the complainant’s one child that can reasonably be severed from the records and released to the complainant. She orders the CAS to release that personal information to the complainant. The adjudicator upholds the reasonableness of the CAS’s search for responsive records.