Request for an investigation into the failure of the BC Government to release information about the Mount Polley tailings pond, contrary to s.25 of FIPPA. Download the complaint

NEWS RELEASE August 11, 2014 BC Government had obligation to release tailings pond info BC FIPA asks Info and Privacy Commissioner to investigate BC government (in)action   VANCOUVER, B.C.—The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association has filed a complaint with the BC Information and Privacy Commissioner over the BC government’s failure to release information […]

FIPA’s submission to Phases 1 and 2 of a consultation by the federal government on the government’s initiatives under the Open Government Partnership. We resubmitted our comments from previous consultations, and emphasized again the need to update the Access to Information Act. Download submission

Access in the Academy, developed by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and Mike Larsen of Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Instructor, Dept. of Criminology), and generously funded by the Law Foundation of British Columbia, is a brand new educational resource that provides a unique and practical look at how researchers, students, and others in the […]

An example letter for making a federal Access to Information Request. Download

Supreme Court of Canada decision on the use of the section 13 ‘policy advice’ exemption in Ontario’s FIPPA, widens ‘black hole’ for government information.   Download release

In a letter sent today, BC FIPA, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), and Newspapers Canada are urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to bring the PMO and Ministers’ offices under the Access to Information Act, after Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault identified three ministerial staff as having interfered with a number of ATI requests. The letter signed […]

The Department of Public Works denies the Federal Information Commissioner’s request for an RCMP investigation of ministerial interference in FOI requests.   Download release

What do you do when you want to make sure documents can’t be requested under freedom of information law? Well if you’re the BC Government, you need only utter one magic word: transitory. Government policy states that a transitory record is one that relates to “temporary usefulness […] needed only for a limited period of […]

Internal e mails FIPA received through freedom of information show that bureaucrats at the BC regulator of financial institutions (FICOM) have privacy concerns regarding the implementation of the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in Canada. Download document

The BC government continues to misinterpret the definition of ‘transitory records’ in order to hide from FOI and delete records they don’t want to release. Former Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid’s e mail regarding the Burnaby Hospital Consultative committee is one such example. Download release

Email sent to former Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid on her private e mail account, regarding Burnaby Hospital Consultative committee. The email was leaked to the NDP in 2013. The Ministry of Health deleted the original email, classifying it as ‘transitory’. Download the document