Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 2, Administration of FOIP. Updated 7 March 2023. 44 providing the argument alone is not sufficient.71 Examples of evidence include affidavits, expert reports, news articles, meeting minutes, policy documents or contracts. In a review, the records at issue are treated as evidence.72 Although news articles are not generally thought of as reliable evidence, they may be relevant in cases such as where a party is trying to demonstrate that something is publicly available, or where personal information has been disclosed without authority. It would not be sufficient to provide the Commissioner with records and leave it up to the Commissioner to draw from the records the facts on which the decisions will be based.73 It would not be sufficient to simply state “access is denied because of section 19.” It is up to the government institution to ‘make the case’ that a particular exemption applies. That means presenting reasons why the exemption is appropriate for the part of the record that has been withheld. This is usually done in the form of written representations, commonly called a submission.74 Representation means the documents, other evidence and/statements or affidavits provided by a party to the commissioner’s office setting out its position with respect to a review or investigation and often referred to as a submission.75 The Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, “Exemptions from the Right of Access” lays out all of the exemptions under Part III of FOIP along with tests that are relied on by the Commissioner to determine if an exemption has been appropriately applied by a government institution. These tests reflect the precedents set by the current and former Commissioners in Saskatchewan, Commissioners in other jurisdictions and court decisions in Saskatchewan and across Canada. The Commissioner shares these tests to assist government institutions, third parties and applicants with preparing persuasive representations (submissions) for the Commissioner. For more on preparing a persuasive submission see IPC blogs, Tips for a Good Submission, What Makes a Good Submission and Preparing and writing a submission. There is also additional guidance on preparing a submission, record and index in IPC resource, What to Expect during a Review with the IPC. Finally, the IPC has also issued a resource titled, A Guide to Submissions 71 AB IPC Adjudication Practice Note 2, Evidence and Arguments for Inquiries at p. 1. 72 Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (BC IPC), Instructions for Written Inquiries, May 2017 at p. 6. 73 AB IPC Adjudication Practice Note 2, Evidence and Arguments for Inquiries at p. 1. 74 SK OIPC Review Report F-2013-005 at [20]. 75 SK OIPC Rules of Procedure at p. 3.
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