Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to LA FOIP, CHAPTER 2, Administration of LA FOIP. Updated 2 March 2023. 45 Parties may not succeed in a review or investigation if they do not provide evidence to support their arguments. If the success of an argument depends on underlying facts, providing the argument alone is not sufficient.66 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.67 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.68 It would not be sufficient to simply state “access is denied because of section 18.” It is up to the local authority 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.69 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.70 The Guide to LA FOIP, Chapter 4, “Exemptions from the Right of Access” lays out all of the exemptions under Part III of LA FOIP along with tests that are relied on by the Commissioner to determine if an exemption has been appropriately applied by a local authority. 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 IPC shares these tests to assist local authorities, third parties and applicants with preparing persuasive representations (submissions) for the IPC. For more on preparing a persuasive submission for the IPC, 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 66 AB IPC Adjudication Practice Note 2, Evidence and Arguments for Inquiries at p. 1. 67 Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (BC IPC), Instructions for Written Inquiries, May 2017 at p. 6. 68 AB IPC Adjudication Practice Note 2, Evidence and Arguments for Inquiries at p. 1. 69 SK OIPC Review Report F-2013-005 at [20]. 70 SK OIPC Rules of Procedure at p. 3.
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