Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, Exemptions from the Right of Access. Updated 8 April 2024. 106 (ii) in the absence or inability to act of the President, by the next senior member of the Executive Council who is present and able to act. Subsection 16(1)(b) of FOIP is a mandatory class-based exemption. It permits refusal of access in situations where release of a record could disclose a confidence of Cabinet including agendas or minutes of Cabinet or any of its committee or records that record deliberations or decisions of Cabinet or any of its committees. Cabinet confidences are generally defined as, in the broadest sense, the political secrets of Ministers individually and collectively, the disclosure of which would make it very difficult for the government to speak in unison before Parliament and the public.386 Including means that the list of information that follows is not complete (non-exhaustive). The examples in the provision are the types of information that could be presumed to disclose a confidence of the Executive Council (Cabinet).387 The following two-part test can be applied. However, only one of the questions needs to be answered in the affirmative for the exemption to apply. There may be circumstances where both questions apply and can be answered in the affirmative. 1. Does the record disclose agendas or minutes of Cabinet or any of its committees? An agenda is a list of things to be done, as items to be considered at a meeting, arranged in order of consideration.388 Minutes are memoranda or notes of a transaction, proceeding or meeting. An official record. It mainly contains a record of what was done at the meeting.389 Executive Council means the Executive Council appointed pursuant to The Executive Government Administration Act.390 It consists of the Premier and Cabinet Ministers. Executive Council is also referred to as “Cabinet”.391 Cabinet has also been defined as the committee of 386 Federal Access to Information and Privacy Legislation Annotated 2015 (Canada: Thomson Reuters Canada Limited, 2014) at page 1-644.4. 387 British Columbia Government Services, FOIPPA Policy and Procedures Manual at https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/services-for-government/policiesprocedures/foippa-manual/cabinet-local-public-body-confidences. Accessed June 26, 2019. 388 Garner, Bryan A., 2019. Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group at p. 78. 389 Garner, Bryan A., 2019. Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group at p. 1194. 390 The Legislation Act, S.S. 2019, Chapter L-10.2 at ss. 2-29. 391 Government of Saskatchewan, Cabinet Secretariat, Executive Council, Executive Government Processes and Procedures in Saskatchewan: A Procedures Manual, 2007, at p. 16.
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