Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, Exemptions from the Right of Access. Updated 8 April 2024. 132 • Be either sought, be expected or be part of the responsibility of the person who prepared the record. • Be prepared for the purpose of doing something, for example, taking an action or making a decision. • Involve or be intended for someone who can take or implement the action.494 General feedback or input from stakeholders or members of the public would not normally qualify, as they are not sufficiently engaged in an advisory role. For example, general stakeholders and members of the public responding to a survey or poll would not qualify as they have simply been asked to provide their own comments and have developed nothing on behalf of the government institution. However, where a government institution asks a specific stakeholder – who has a particular knowledge, expertise or interest in relation to a topic – to provide advice, proposals, recommendations, analyses or policy options for it, it would be specifically engaging the stakeholder (even if not paid) in an advisory role and there would be a sufficient close connection to the government institution.495 Use of the word “developed” suggests the Legislature’s intention was for the provision to include information generated in the process leading up to the giving of advice, proposals, recommendations, analyses or policy options (for example, draft versions).496 Drafts and redrafts of advice, proposals, recommendations, analyses and/or policy options may be protected by the exemption. A public servant may engage in writing any number of drafts before communicating part or all of their content to another person. The nature of the deliberative process is to draft and redraft advice or recommendations until the writer is sufficiently satisfied that they are prepared to communicate the results to someone else. All the information in those earlier drafts informs the end result even if the content of any one draft is not included in the final version.497 494 Criteria originated from AB IPC Order 96-006 at pp. 9 and 10 for Alberta’s equivalent provision. Alberta’s subsection 23(1)(a) is substantially similar to Saskatchewan’s subsection 17(1)(a). Criteria were adopted in SK OIPC Review Reports F-2010-001 at [81] and LA-2010-001 at [28] for subsections 17(1)(a) of FOIP and 16(1)(a) of LA FOIP. 495 AB IPC Order F2008-008 at [42] to [44]. Relied on in SK OIPC Review Reports F-2010-001 at [81] and LA-2011-001 at [66]. 496 Ontario (Ministry of Northern Development and Mines) v. Mitchinson, 2004 CanLII 15009 (ON SCDC) at [56]. Justice Dunnet found that inclusion of this word changed the meaning in the federal and British Columbia legislation compared to Ontario’s FOIP legislation that did not include this word. 497 John Doe v. Ontario (Finance), [2014] 2 SCR 3, 2014 SCC 36 (CanLII) at [48] to [51].
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