Government affidavits claimed an RCMP investigation was ongoing VANCOUVER – The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (BC FIPA) has asked Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham to investigate the BC government’s claims that the RCMP had an active investigation into the 2012 firings at the Ministry of Health. An Access to Information request […]

June 9, 2015 Elizabeth Denham Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia PO Box 9038, Stn. Prov. Govt. Victoria, BC V8W 9A4 RE: BC Government submissions in OIPC file F12-50727   Dear Commissioner, I am writing to ask you to conduct an investigation under s.42 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act […]

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.  

May 14, 2015 The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Prime Minister of Canada Langevin Block Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2   Re: Use of the Parliamentary Time Machine Dear Prime Minister: Like most Canadians, we are shocked by your government’s decision to bring in legislation to retroactively undermine the Access to Information Act using amendments buried in […]

Nobody likes going public with embarrassing reports, but the B.C. government has conjured some of its most creative legal analyses yet in an attempt to keep less flattering information out of the public realm. The B.C. government has refused to post both the McNeil report, which examines the mysterious Ministry of Health data breach firings, […]

It took two years, but the records requested by FIPA in 2012 regarding contracts and other records related to the mysterious Ministry of Health data breach case have finally been released and are posted on our website. FIPA had requested the following information: Data sharing and other agreements involving the Ministry and four named individuals; […]

On March 31, the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada tabled a report in parliament on Canada’s Access to Information Act. The report puts forward 85 recommendations to update the Act so that it better serves Canadians. FIPA signed the following joint letter calling on the Canadian government to review and update the Act, […]

The BC government’s new Government Information Act takes some useful steps to preserving information, but it has a big hole and also takes a major step backward. http://www.leg.bc.ca/40th4th/1st_read/gov05-1.htm#section18 The biggest problem is that it contains no duty to document. Recently several freedom of information requests come back with not a single piece of information attached. […]

BC FIPA presented our recommendations to the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) on October 16, 2015. Download our written submissions via the links below, or learn more about the Committee and its statutory review of the Act here. Our main written submission Our letter introducing supplementary submissions Supplementary […]