FIPA Mini-Bulletin: June 2015 The past month has been action-packed at FIPA. At the Federal level, the passing of Bill C-51 in the Senate and the Conservative Government’s retroactive attack on access to information through the C-59 Omnibus Bill set the tone for the month. In BC, allegations were made by a former executive assistant […]

On June 22, 2015, FIPA filed an Application for Leave to appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia on our Election Act challenge. The BC Election Act makes something as simple as putting a handwritten sign in your window during the election period without registering with the authorities an offense, which […]

Information Commissioner closes big loophole in FOI law   VANCOUVER, June 19, 2015 – In a series of decisions released today, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has ruled that governments and public bodies can no longer withhold information in a record on the basis that it is ‘outside the scope’ of the […]

Below are the submissions and supporting affidavits from FIPA and the BC Government in the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) Hearing in March 2014, which resulted in Order F14-45. Submissions: FIPA intial submissions FIPA reply submission BC Government reply submission BC Government initial submission Affidavits: Taylor Affidavit Johnson Affidavit Madden Affidavit Email […]

W. Taylor Affidavit S. Johnson Affidavit Email from Sgt Cowan RCMP Exhibit A

Click to read our latest blog on the Huffington Post The spring session of the B.C. Legislature has just wrapped up with a bang. The NDP released a letter from a former Liberal executive assistant to the minister of transportation alleging that he was ordered to delete dozens of emails related to the Highway of […]

“No responsive records” systematically used by Government to avoid releasing documents in Freedom of Information requests VANCOUVER— The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) is concerned that the alleged destruction of email records related to missing women on the Highway of Tears is a new and disturbing part of an ongoing trend by […]

Follow us on Twitter and retweet our response to Harper’s retroactive attack on access to information. For more, read our letter to Stephen Harper.  

FIPA’s 2014 Annual Report is online! Read about our work this past year here.

Click here to watch an excerpt of a presentation by lead author Pippa Lawson at the launch of “The Connected Car: Who is in the Driver’s Seat.”    

New report by BC FIPA takes a hard look at how our cars are watching us Our cars have changed. Once simply a means of traveling from point A to B, cars are increasingly capable of astonishing computerized feats. New “Connected Cars” are essentially computers on wheels whose functions include navigation, diagnosing vehicle health, monitoring […]

In a 2-1 ruling handed down April 23, the BC Court of Appeal has upheld an earlier decision which found that although third party ‘advertising’ provisions of the Election Act violated the Charter, they could still be justified. The law makes something as simple as putting a handwritten sign in your window during the election […]