The response to FIPA’s complaint to the OIPC, regarding a FOI request with the Ministry of Health that was returned with ‘no responsive records’. FIPA had requested an email about the Burnaby Hospital Consultative committee that has been sent to Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid’s private e mail account. The OIPC stated that the record had […]

The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and the BC (BC FIPA) have written a letter to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of BC (OIPC) in support of adding the BC Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP) and the BC Association of Municipal Chiefs of Police (BCAMCP) as public bodies to Schedule 2 of the […]

BC Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has found at least one Ministry has violated section 25 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act; that public bodies across the province seem unaware of their legal duty to release information relevant to public health and safety or environmental risks without a Freedom of […]

BC FIPA has responded to the Federal Government consultation on the Open Government Partnership commitments with a highly critical examination of the government’s approach. Lack of transparency is a serious issue in this country, and not just for this government. However, the Government of Canada labours under the most archaic Access to Information law, and […]

A new report from Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham reviewing the performance of the Government of British Columbia’s ‘open government’ initiative calls the open information component “the weakest component of the policy”. This is a large initiative, covering a number of different areas, and so the results do vary. But the overall, they are […]

Another of Canada’s Information Commissioners has found that the problem of oral government has taken hold at the highest levels of provincial power. Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, issued a report yesterday exposing “[a] culture of avoiding the creation of written documentation” in the “offices of the former Minister of Energy and the […]

Judging by a number of documents released by her office on Monday, Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is not satisfied with the “maybe by 2016, if we feel like it” response from Deputy Minister of Citizen Services Kim Henderson to her recent recommendation that the provincial government implement a legislated duty to document. In […]

In a new investigation report prompted by a complaint from the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham confirms widespread and growing instances of senior government officials failing to keep records of important decisions. FIPA’s complaint outlined a dramatic increase in the number of general FOI requests returned with […]

The UVic Environmental Law Centre, in collaboration with West Coast Environmental Law, Ecojustice and numerous BC lawyers, has just published a potential environmental law reform agenda for the next provincial government. Maintaining SuperNatural BC for our Children: Selected Law Reform Proposals can be downloaded for free from http://www.elc.uvic.ca FIPA’s Executive Director Vincent Gogolek, in collaboration […]

Since September, Canada’s Information Commissioner Suzanne Legaut has been running a broad public consultation, seeking out suggestions for how to modernize our woefully out-of-date Access to Information Act (ATIA). Any individual or organization can participate in this critically important process. But your chance to speak up ends soon. Submissions to the consultation process close on […]

BC FIPA has responded to the questions posed by the Information Commissioner of Canada in relation to the consultation on needed reforms to the Access to Information Act (ATIA) The consultation is being undertaken in the context of the 30th anniversary of the passage of the ATIA. BC FIPA proposes multiple amendments to the ATIA […]

Universities and other public bodies can still create independent companies whose records are beyond the reach of province’s FOI law, more than a year after the former Minister of Open Government promised to deal with the problem. Last October, Information and Privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham wrote a letter to then-minister Margaret MacDiarmid to highlight a […]