Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 1, Purposes and Scope of FOIP. Updated 7 March 2023 34 Subsection 4(a) Existing rights preserved 4 This Act: (a) complements and does not replace exiting procedures for access to government information or records; FOIP is in addition to and does not replace existing procedures for obtaining access to information or records held by government institutions. However, the existence of other processes where an applicant may be able to obtain records does not replace an applicant’s right to make an access to information request. In Evenson v Saskatchewan (Ministry of Justice), 2013 SKQB 296 (CanLII), Justice Gabrielson confirmed that subsection 4(a) of FOIP was not intended to limit or reduce the rights of access existing at the time of FOIP’s proclamation but only to complement existing rights: [21] Counsel for the Ministry submits that the Stinchcombe procedure takes precedence over the Act and cannot be replaced by the Act. However, such a position ignores the basic premise referred to by the Court in the General Motors Acceptance case, supra – that s. 4 was intended not to limit or reduce the rights of access existing at the time of proclamation but only to complement such existing rights. In this case, the Ministry is suggesting that rather than contemplating existing procedures, the Act is limited by the existing criminal law procedures. In my opinion, that runs contrary to the Court of Appeal’s statement that there should be full disclosure unless information is exempted under clearly delineated statutory language. Accordingly, unless a specific exemption from disclosure is found in the Act, I would apply the general philosophy of full disclosure. IPC Findings In Review Report 153-2015, the University of Saskatchewan requested the Commissioner exercise the authority to dismiss a request for review, “and allow the normal course of exchanging documents to take place in due course, and pursuant to the many legal regimes [the applicant] has already engaged.” The Commissioner found that the existence of other processes where the applicant may be able to obtain the record, he was seeking did not
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