Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, Exemptions from the Right of Access. Updated 8 April 2024. 172 2. Does the government institution have a proprietary interest or a right to use it? This means that the government institution must be able to demonstrate rights to the information. Proprietary means of, relating to or holding as property.620 Proprietary interest is the interest held by a property owner together with all appurtenant rights, such as a stockholder’s right to vote the shares.621 It signifies simply “interest as an owner” or “legal right or title”.622 Owner means someone who has the right to possess, use and convey something; a person in whom one or more interests are vested.623 Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act subsection 18(1)(a) is similar to Saskatchewan’s but instead of proprietary interest or right of use, it uses the phrase “that belongs to the Government of Ontario or an institution”.624 In Ontario Order MO-1746, the phrase “belongs to” was found to mean “ownership” which makes it relevant for Saskatchewan’s subsection 18(1)(b) of FOIP. In Order MO-1746, the Adjudicator stated: The Assistant Commissioner has thus determined that the term “belongs to” refers to “ownership” by an institution, and that the concept of “ownership of information” requires more than the right to simply possess, use or dispose of information, or control access to the physical record in which the information is contained. For information to “belong to” an institution, the institution must have some proprietary interest in it either in a traditional intellectual property sense - such as copyright, trade mark, patent or industrial design - or in the sense that the law would recognize a substantial interest in protecting the information from misappropriation by another party. Examples of the latter type of information may include trade secrets, business to business mailing lists (Order P636), customer or supplier lists, price lists, or other types of confidential business information. In each of these examples, there is an inherent monetary value in the information to the organization resulting from the expenditure of money or the 620 Garner, Bryan A., 2019. Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group at p. 1474. 621 Garner, Bryan A., 2019. Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group at p. 969. First relied on by SK OIPC in F-2005-006 at [11]. 622 Sangan’s Encyclopedia of Words and Phrases Legal Maxims, Canada, 5th Edition, Volume 4, P to R at p. P-495. 623 Garner, Bryan A., 2019. Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group at p. 1331. 624 Ontario subsection 18(1)(a) of FOIP provides “A head may refuse to disclose a record that contains…trade secrets or financial, commercial, scientific or technical information that belongs to the Government of Ontario or an institution and has monetary value or potential monetary value”.
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