BC Lottery Corporation goes “all in” to avoid FOI requests

Updated and corrected March 23, 2012

BCLC Appeals Three of Six FOI Orders to BC Supreme Court

The BC Lottery Corporation REALLY doesn’t like to release information to Freedom of information requesters. Of all the 2,500+ public bodies covered by BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy act, it is proving to be the most reluctant and most litigious.

BCLC’s denial of six FOI requests went to hearings before the Information and Privacy Commissioner in the past year, with BCLC claiming a variety of exceptions to the rule that records must be released.

They lost every one of those hearings. In each case, the Commissioner’s office made an order requiring BCLC to release records. In four out of the six cases, every ground raised by BCLC was rejected by the Commissioner.

Since 2011, BCLC has filed appeals in BC Supreme Court in half of these Orders from the Commissioner. A fourth appeal was filed by “a director of a gaming company, who was also a former Chair of the Board of Directors of BCLC.”

Based on what similar appeals have cost, FIPA estimates that the legal costs incurred by BCLC and the Commissioner (who will have to defend her decisions) will run to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For a backgrounder with a chart of BC Lottery Corporation litigation between 2011-2012, click here.