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

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 […]